The Paper Girl
by Mistress of Mordor
Summary: The fate of Faerun revolves around four people. When Thorn, a Bhaalspawn becomes the object of a corrupted mage's obsessive desire she must fight to save herself and those she loves. Only one will survive its devistating effects. A tale of unrequited love
1. The Sentient Miasma

**In the Beginning**

_The tree was white, as though perpetually encased in frost. Tall it was also, as tall as the lowest cloud. Its canopy was a mass of sensually entangled branches like writhing limbs draped in the softest of silver leaves. Here, enfolded in this shimmering womb of foliage a ceremony was taking place or rather an execution. An elf man and woman knelt in shackles side by side. The man's face was badly scorched the skin hanging in drapes and folds from the extremities like an ill-fitting mask. His swollen eyes were closed, head drooped upon his chest and his body heaved, and shook visibly from the pain. The woman remained perfectly stationary save for her cat orbs, which swung about at the slightest tremor of a leaf. They were surrounded by wan Elvin guards who spoke little and sighed often. A queen stood before them. From a distance one might believe her to be the very emblem of beauty, but when she was close enough to touch it would be observed that that day her sun stained hair was disheveled, her green eyes introverted farther into their dark sockets, everything red, and swollen. With wavering steps she advances upon the submissive figures her face is gray with emotion. Slowly, her hands weave pinnacles of light in the air, voice low and fragile and chanting incantations. The woman prisoner begins to thrash against her bonds, but the man only looks up helplessly at the caster. _

_"Please, please...reconsider. Don't do this, I can still change, I can still be redeemed please, please!"_

_She falters at his pitiful entreaties, and the glow fades, her face contorts. Then she hardens again, and carves the spell into a small red berry, which she places in her taunt mouth._

_"You are beyond redemption now."_

_"I can change, please, please, please..."_

_She kisses him. _

In the Present 

_The city of Baldur's Gate could only be described as a vast perpetually burning flame, devouring, pulsating like a sleeping dragon sprawled across the rugged landscape, a bonfire of flesh. Thorn was reluctant to leave it, but rumors were beginning to spawn amongst the city's inhabitants. Rumors suggesting that she was a child of Bhaal former Lord of Murder, and if such suspicions were verified it would place herself and her companions in grave danger. Thus a discreet exit was made that brought them about a mile outside of the flourishing metropolis before they halted to spend the remainder of the lucid night in quiet repose... _

**Chapter 1. The Sentient Miasma**

The actual cause of the band's gradual stop was due to the aromatic cloud that obscured their vision until they were groping like blind insects in the dark. The blackness was impregnated with a thick vale of fog that shifted in such ways that each twitch of a smoky tendril seemed deliberate as though a conscious mind was behind it, encroaching upon their solitude. Thorn sniffed the air inquisitively. It was sweet yet suffocating like poisoned honey. She felt strangely sleepy, as if she had been drinking, but she hadn't. By listening to the muffled sounds of Jahiera, and Khalide nestling in their sleeping rolls, Minsc cooing to his hamster Boo, and Imoen's delicate snores she determined that the others were similarly effected.

Suddenly the half-elf felt the brush of something hot against her cheek. She stiffened every nerve quivering in trepidation. A shape was moving in the corner of her eye, she clutched her dagger in its scabbard until the knuckles shone white as moons her fear writhing like an oily snake in her belly.

"Th-thorn?" The girl relaxed when she saw it was only her friend Khalide.

"Yes, I'm here." Her voice sounded dead, dropping like a stone as soon as soon as it left her lips. Another side effect of the sinister fog.

"W-wha-what da-do you make of thi-this fog?" Khalide's face was brown and leathery from exposure to the elements like a saddlebag, and his eyes swam in it like shreds of sky. Thorn regarded him affectionately despite her disquiet, Khalide was one of those remarkable individuals who could cheer anyone with his mere presence.

"I don't know. I really don't know. The way it descended upon us so rapidly, and its sweet aroma makes me want to believe it's the product of a spell, but if so who's? Who could possibly be after us now? Sarevok is dead, and we're still heroes in Baldur's Gate despite the rumors. God, do you know what it reminds me of? It reminds of the night Gorion and I were ambushed. It seems like ages ago..." A shudder like a frigid needle cut her off.

"I'm sorry. S-so you still think about that d-do you?"

"It's not an easy thing to forget."

"I c-can imagine. If I lost a loved one, like Jahiera f-for instance..."

Thorn looked him full in the face, rather alarmed by the strain of melancholy his voice had obtained.

"For Elmister's sake, what you will say sometimes Khalide. You won't lose Jahiera. She'd never stand for it trust me."

His eyes were like blue tempests.

"If so-something ever ha-ha-ha-happens to me..."

"Nothing is going to happen!" Thorn's voice was unnaturally high and thin. Her alarm was inexplicably great, she felt as though they were all on the verge of something wretched.

"If something does." He continued unabashed. "I want you to look out for her. I know that she believes that she is your guardian, but you are her's in so many ways. Please, promise me this now, and then my sleep will be undisturbed." His tirade went unbroken by stutters, there was a luminous intensity radiating from him that night, he seemed to have become someone else, or perhaps a truer version of himself.

Suddenly Thorn felt as though he wasn't there anymore.

"I promise." And her soul was bound.

He smiled, a happy, innocent curl of the lips, then he disappeared into the arms of the fog, and Thorn heard him lay down by Jahiera's side an instant later.

Soon she found herself in a similar position. Curled up in her sleeping sack like a caterpillar in its cocoon, listening to Imoen breath. She was inundated with love for the girl. A sibling's love for a sibling devoted, unquestioning. Throwing her arms around her little sister's slumbering form she rose into the world of illusions that awaited her patiently as a lover every night.

_A bat was born. It unfolded its sticky silk wings, and began to fly. It had the head of a baby. The right side of the baby's face was mutilated. Flesh collided and split upon each other like broken watch gears and the eye rolled monotonously like a fistful of blood. The left side of the baby's face was white as cream and the blue eye sparkled like shards of glass. It opened its pink little mouth, which bristled with brown, withered fangs. It opened wide and first it eat Khalide, then it flapped over and perched on her left breast whist kissing her throat with its teeth. Thorn fell away beneath it._

Her slumber was violently arrested by Imoen's penetrating scream. She sat up wildly to see her sister grappling with two burly figures attempting to bind her limbs with silver wire that glinted in the light of the newly visible moon. Her mind charged with fear and adrenaline, Thorn snatched the staff that lay beside her and forced it hard upon the closest one's skull, the latter man collapsed twitching grotesquely upon the ground. Then the small campsite erupted into conflict. Weapons and magic swirled in a volatile vortex, and she cut and slashed the fierce talons latching onto her like leaches. The fighting was so close that she did not have sufficient time to cast a spell of repulsion, that would have cast her enemies every which way like bits of dead leaves, it would have saved them. Eventually the hands became to many and she was forced to the ground struggling and straining against her confines, her pale visage livid with rage, absorbing the pungent aroma of fright and distortion that ringed her round.

A body was being carried. Its face was caked in a mask of black blood and its head swayed limply to the beat of the uneven steps of those that transported it. Who was it? Had somebody died here?

Bound by sharp cords Thorn had the sensation that she was being lifted. The sky passed overhead like a fountain of diamonds, she was vaguely aware of Minsc's ferocious roar and then there was nothing.

The first thing Thorn was conscious of as she slowly returned to life was a piercing stare deeply embedded in her face. She was lying on her back on a pile of foul smelling straw that chaffed her already bruised, and battered flesh. The air was impregnated with moisture filling her nostrils and drenching her body like a tongue licking the smooth contours of her skin. It was as though she lay in the middle of a great salivating mouth. Propping her torso up unsteadily upon her elbows she discovered the source of the searing attentions. A huge man stood on the other side of the bars of her prison. His was a striking figure, heavily muscled like a horse, his sizable pectorals rose and fell visibly beneath a scanty leather jerkin, but his face was even more remarkable. It was hideous and the revulsion that accompanied that discovery made itself plainly visible upon Thorn's bloodless features. Never had she seen a more contorted countenance. The right side of his face seemed to have been torn to pieces and then fused together again with crude, thick, brown stitches. The left appeared to have been unfinished by its creator, the skin there was bone white and unmarked except by the numerous purple veins that crosshatched that region like battered ropes. The eyes were disorienting at best, one black and hard as a beetle shell, and the other pale blue and glinting like a razor. Those eyes were furnaces, holes in a volcano wall. They smoldered unceasingly with a sickly light, yet they were capable of boiling to sudden combustion in an instant if so provoked and they were fastened intensely upon her. This rag doll of a man made the bile rise into her mouth, the caustic liquid washed about her tongue as her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed with a groan of agony.

"I'm in hell."

"No not yet." Countered a surprisingly eloquent and authoritative voice. It was his.

Thorn heard the rattle and squeal of a cell door being opened and she shivered as heavy footsteps rebounded upon the floor and walls of her skull. He knelt beside her. She could see his broken visage, kiln orbs still flaying the skin from her body. The girl closed her eyes tight.

"So you are disgusted by me. I expected as much, and I am pleased. Disgust is the perfect discipline for the mind."

"Where are my friends?" She whispered hoarsely.

"They are safe for the present, but I fear you are not as fortunate. You see safety and other pleasantries are privileges that are now unavailable to you."

"Why? Who are you? What do you want from me?"

"Nothing that in the end you do not desire yourself. I will make you see what you are, what you could become."

Thorn looked upon his face. It was expressionless as a mask.

"You're mad."

"No, not mad merely enlightened." With that he fastened a hand about each of her wrists, the palms were cold as death as she thrashed, desperately trying to free herself from him as he pulled her too her feet. She pressed her face against her breast she bit his fingers, but he gave no more noticed that if they had been feather touches. Her wrapped an arm around the back of her knees and another around her back like bands of iron, then he lifted her as easily as if she were made of vapor. Her head was pressed against his chest she could hear the monotonous beating of his heart like a hollow drum; the skin burned her cheek like fire. She screamed. He looked down at her, and might have been surprised though it did not manifest itself on his face.

"Do not fear me God child I am about to free you, to show you what you posses." Save your strength it is time for the experiments to commence. "


	2. Warm Blooded

_Hello, and by the way I do not own Baldur's Gate or the characters there in except Thorn, and perhaps a few others along the way. It is all the property of Bioware, and they can keep it as far as I'm concerned. _

_This is my first fanfic so I have no idea what I'm doing. Well, some idea._

_This chapter may actually be considered R material, but it's nothing gratuitous and it won't be like this all the time. _

_Read and review please._

**Chapter 2. Warm Blooded**

The room was dark except for the eerie yellow glare of a lamp that hovered listlessly over a rusty chair. It was a formidable apparatus. Splinters and leather straps protruded from the seat and armrests, the latter of which were encrusted within a black substance, dried blood. Upon making this horrifying observation Thorn's entrails churned and spun nauseatingly, and she renewed her efforts to extricate herself from his crushing embrace, but it was all in vain. The mage placed her in the feircesome recliner as delicately as if she were made of porcelain, strapping her in securely with the leather bands. Then he stood back to admire his handiwork. Thorn could not bare to look at his gruesome face, more disfigured then the instrument of torture she occupied. At length he began to pace the room slowly. His gate was as unnatural as the rest of his attributes. It was regal, sustained, and direct, yet heavy and coiled like a large cat ready to spring on the instant. He was a living contradiction, appearing to be indubitably fastened, nay, rooted to the earth yet simultaneously to be floating like a dancer, or a wrath, it was both fascinating, and baffling to behold, and Thorn watched with not a little fear, and wonder.

"Do you know why you're here?"

She didn't answer so great was her hatred, and terror that it drained the warmth from her blood leaving her tongue, and limbs, inanimate.

"Look at me." Her captor's voice was firm.

Thorn continued to hide behind her clenched lids, hoping desperately that when she opened them this would disappear like a foul dream.

"Look at me." A hand seized her chin in a pincer grasp.

She yelped at the splitting pain it produced and stared to find his face just inches from her own. Thorn could feel his blistering breath like magma on her skin. His eyes glittered with a hellish light.

"That's better." He released her throbbing jaw, stood back and crossed his bulging arms. "Now I repeat the question. 'Do you or do you not understand why you're here?"

Thorn shook her head weakly.

"Yes I suppose you don't, you have been confined by ignorance up until this point. Very well, I have chosen to place you under my tutelage, because you possess a tremendous amount of power."

"You are referring to my heritage." Thorn felt a spark of clarity penetrate the shroud of madness that had encased her like an ill fitted sarcophagus.

"Yes, how very insightful you are, insight is the first step to understanding. You must know what it is you want before you comprehend why you want it, you must know first that you are a child of Bhaal with limitless power before you can harness that power and utilize it to your advantage. However you will require more then just insight to achieve your highest potential, you must have strength, endurance, cunning, potency and the will to take what is rightfully yours. I can...teach you... awaken these merits if you will."

"Hah!" A terrible laugh like crushed bone cracked the girl's larnex. "And what might that entail pray?"

"Only your full attention, and believe me my dear under my instruction attentiveness is never lacking."

"I don't want that power least of all under _your_ tuition!" She spat at him with all the fire she could muster. The mage remained stoic in the heat of her protests, his sinewy chest rising and falling methodically. His vacuity staggered her, she felt as though she would be pulled into it.

"That is unfortunate for I'm afraid at this point you are without much choice. You _will_ learn."

"Where is my sister?! What have you done with her?!"

The sinister elf (for elf he must have been once, his ears were sharp as razors) began to tighten the leather bonds until the bones in her forearms buckled and she had to clench her teeth to keep from gasping, not about to give him the satisfaction of seeing her externalize her pain.

"She is secure for the present as I told you earlier. Her performance throughout the duration of my little experiments was rather impressive. I expect still more from you."

Thorn's vision raged crimson.

"Monster!" She shrieked in the wildest of passions. Twisting as wrath coursed acidly through her body like a blood fever. "I'll never succumb to your torture! You're mad! Fire! Fire! I'll kill you, you, wretched animal!"

In truth Thorn would have enjoyed killing him just then. She would relish tearing out his entrails with her bare hands and bathing her hands in the blood spouting forth like wine.

In contrast the man appeared pleased. The corners of his mouth had curled almost imperceptibly, and it was not lost on Thorn. She arrested her outburst to gape at him white faced, aghast, it was the first facial expression that she had witnessed him use, and she had expected anger not amusement.

"Kill me will you?" He purred. "Excellent! You anticipated the first lesson and how well you have performed. You begin to feel the call of your blood, your insatiable appetite for death. You are surrendering to your baser instincts, and that is good. I am very pleased with you."

To Thorn's great astonishment he undid the bonds that pinned her hands, and leant his perverse face within reach of them.

"Go on then. Release your rage, tear me to bloody fragments I will not resist, it will only bring you closer to the slayer within you. It is yours to become."

Her shock was immediately replaced with renewed animosity. Fervently she extended her clawed fingers trembling with the consuming desire to gauge that burning blue eye from its socket. She embedded her nails in the skin of his cheeks and began to rip. But she hesitated as soon as she felt the first trickle of warm blood lace her knuckles. Her captor had remained visibly unaffected throughout the ordeal, and Thorn knew that he would remain so had she mauled his flesh from his bones. What had truly arrested her assault though was that she was suddenly hit with the sickening realization that the ire and thirst for blood she was experiencing stemmed from her Bhaal essence, and she was succumbing to it. The intelligence horrified her; she began to gasp and sweat, her lovely face pallid, and contorted with grief. Then her muscles lost all life and her ebony head slumped upon her chest, arms dropping inert.

It was some time before she realized that her hand was being supported by something. Lifting her head with great effort from its resting place her skin recoiled to discover that the mage was cradling it in one of his own. To stunned to protest or even to draw it away she watched the sadistic creature as one who knows they are witnessing something remarkable. He traced the fine lines of her palm with his fingers. His face was unusually intense; the eyes were now rampant with private fires when before they had been so frigid, his expression was difficult to define. Eventually his questing finger found the rivulets of his blood that adorned her wan knuckles, the same blood that flowed from the gash she had made in his temple. He smiled oddly. It was almost a wince as if the effort of manipulating his visage to form an expression pained him.

"What's the matter? Did you expect it would be cold?"

Thorn could not answer.

Then he laughed and dropped her hand as if it burned him. Standing above her his malformed face was black then ashen, something had awakened, and Thorn shriveled with dread to look upon that torrid countenance where it lurked.

"Yes, it is indeed interesting that my blood should still be warm. After all, every other feature usually attributed with life has all, but... _faded_ from me. I am nearly a shell now. She has taken everything, everything that made me a living, functioning organism. Yes you're right, this blood should be cold, but you, you girl are so warm." His voice was quivering with underlying emotion.

Thorn watched this outburst with forlorn absorption. "Who? Who took everything from you?"

He started as if he had forgotten her presence.

"Demons from my past come to torment me again, and we will leave it at that."

"Who are you?"

Unheeding her last inquiry her subjugator, put a hand to his weeping temple, and muttered a spell under his breath. In a brief puff of blue light that expanded from his fingers the wound disappeared. Then with a flutter of his left hand a creature more skeleton then man appeared by his side in shackles from a dimension door. Thorn gawked, transfixed as the mage then proceeded to chant the incantations of the bolt of lightning spell whilst forming the movements with his hands. The ravenous web of electricity impaled the man through his stomach and he collapsed onto the floor with a wail that pierced Thorn to the marrow. He lay there for what seemed like an eternity jerking and flailing convulsively, yellow froth coated the blackened tongue that protruded from his mouth like a scorched piece of meat. The sweet smell of burning fat inundated her nostrils, her head swam, and the last thing she saw before the darkness claimed her once again was her captor gazing upon the bloated, bubbling, bag of sizzling, twitching flesh in an intrigued sort of way. Then he fixed his sadistic attentions upon her his face papery, and radiating a deranged light.

"Are you ready for the second lesson? Come, let us begin."

_Many thanks to my first and only reviewer, I'm sorry this took so long, but my computer had/has a virus and I haven't had access to it for some time. I am pretty sure that updates will be much faster after this, and so far I have no intention of stopping. _

_For impatient people, this is not a PC torture fic in the slightest. The merry band will be escaping in chapter four, because (if you have not already figured it out) this story follows the basic plot structure of Shadows of Amn, only with more developed characters, relationships, and alterations at points in the plot line. So please BARE WITH ME. _

_I do not expect a lot of reviews, but if anyone is reading this please review, have mercy. _


	3. The Riseing of the Shadows

**Chapter 3. The Rising of the Shadows**

In the end he was forced to carry her back to her cell. She had endured the five hours of strenuous study without uttering so much as a whimper. During one memorable moment he had pulled her from the chair and presented a kneeling slave, which he then instructed her to scorch with the Burning Hands spell. Thorn had expressed her refusal by vehemently spitting in his face.

"She has a fiery spirit." He mused. "It will take time and persistence to channel that fire, but I will break her."

Truth be told he was beginning to feel admiration for the tenacious creature. Many times while he cut into sentient tissue, he had caught himself observing her reactions. The godchild's alabaster face had been perspiring and more then once she vomited in her lap, sick with horror. Never the less every time he handed her the knife or ordered her to chant a spell an unshakable ferocity like brimstone would rise into those black eyes and she would curse at him unmindful or uncaring of what physical harm it brought upon herself. Yes he admired her. She had courage.

Stepping into her dank cell he continued to hold her for a minute feeling the weight of her in his arms. Hesitantly he looked into her face. Thorn's complexion was white as the fairest china with only a delicate blush blossoming on each elegantly sculpted cheek. He looked harder. Some might say that her facial traits were too sharp, everything about her seemed to glitter in the way that steel blades glitter when held to the light. Her eyes were dark as the densest smoke yet reflective like pools of deep water, they were too dark, yes much too dark for his taste. He like faired eyed women... but who was he fooling? She was beautiful. There was an intelligence and perception written in her face that only served to enhance the natural charm of her features. Those eyes held an inferno of life, and cunning, and the longer he gazed at them the more he wished to lose himself in their radiance. Slowly he pinched a lock of her thick ebony tresses between his large fingers, it was soft and fine like sand. Last of all he gazed upon her lips, shapely, gentle, full, suddenly he felt himself breaking apart, shivering in the heat of an insatiable desire to experience what sensations they could produce upon his own.

He deposited her hastily upon the ground, his breathing shallow as he fled down the long corridor away from this creature that stirred such forgotten kindling in his breast.

****

When Thorn awoke it was to the robust clanging of her cell door. Her sleep had been like the sleep of the dead and she rose from it gasping for air, clutching her chest at every hollow gap in her pulse. She recovered in time to see the great, brown, bulky form of a gollum lumber down the hall.

"Wait come back!" Her voice was hoarse, as with overuse, and calling in such a loud tone jarred her vocal cords painfully. The humanoid did not heed her, but proceeded on its way. Thorn scanned her cell searching for what it had been programmed to do, and discovered a silver plate heaped with mounds of spiced meat, dripping with sizzling oil, and smothered in a type of mushroom glaze that had a lovely golden hue. There were vegetables as well surrounding the meat and drowning in its scrumptious runoff. The smell was vindictive; her mouth was awash in saliva, her stomach churned achingly. She had not had time to realize just how hungry she was. With a deep throaty growl she lunged for it. Just at that moment she was confronted by the imposing figure of her capture on the opposite side of the bars. The lock clicked, and he stepped inside closing the door behind him. Thorn bristled with a million needles of terror impaling her spine, and she recoiled to the farthest corner of the room shaking, her upper lib quivering in an animalistic snarl. The mage regarded her quietly, his face betraying no signs of emotion.

"I'm sorry for intruding. I see that you are still agitated from last night, that is unfortunate, but it will pass with further training." He advanced a step. Thorn's throat imploded, unable to breath. Seeing the hatred and fright in her eyes like sulfur he halted and decided not to come within an arms reach for fear of igniting those two passions and having her make a dive for his throat.

"Here." Thorn watched him set a pewter goblet on the floor, and step back. "Your medicine. A little wine to heighten the blood in your cheeks, you look like the ghost of yourself."

The woman licked her flaking lips, tasting the acrid vomit from the night before. She was so thirsty. Tentatively she crept forward on all fours, then snatched the glass from its resting place and embezzled herself back into the corner, gulping eagerly, letting the scarlet liquid run down her chin, each frigid mouthful soothing her throbbing throat. She did not know what it tasted like, she only knew its coolness and the relief it brought. Thorn felt him watching her and when she had finished off the contents of the cup, she glowered at him, with renewed vehemence, longing to spit in that distorted blue eye. Silently he placed the tray before her in the same manner as the goblet, only this time to Thorn's mortification he sat down cross-legged behind it and gestured for her to follow suit. She let out a laugh, a hard, splitting sound.

"You want me to eat so close to you? I don't know how I'd be able to keep the food down."

"None the less I think you had better try, because it is this or nothing."

Thorn eyed the banquet voraciously, but was still apprehensive as to his motives. Sensing this, the mage sought to reassure her.

"I won't lay a hand on you."

Far from satisfied Thorn at last complied out of sheer depravity. She bit into the succulent flesh letting the warmth of it fill her mouth, and the sweet juices coat her tongue. She ate like a starving dog, scraping meat off the bones with her teeth, and hands while her stoic guard poured more wine. He did not utter a word throughout the duration of the meal, but appeared to be enthralled by her appetite, or perhaps he was just enthralled by her. When her belly had swelled to its limits she licked the plate, and sat almost forgetting him while she basked in the feelings of being satiated. His cold voice startled her.

"I did not fully realize the extent of your hunger, or I would have fed you sooner."

"And I did not fully realize the extent of your madness or I should have never left Baldur's Gate."

"Yes, it was a highly dangerous endeavor to undertake, and an extremely blind one if you even thought for a moment that you were not under close observation."

"But why? Why watch me?"

"Have I not explained it in full to you many times? You are a child of Bhaal."

"Yes, but there are others."

"Many others, but you alone have the power to become the Lady of Murder."

Thorn blanched at the title.

"Lady of Murder? I? Never! I would never choose that bloody path let me assure you, thou fiend!"

"It is not a choice for you to make. It is in your blood, it is the building blocks of your soul." His coutenance grew torrid, and he stood knocking over the goblet, and spilling the remaining liquid onto the floor. Thorn cringed, and watched his agile form pace rapidly across the cell. "I chose you because I saw your capabilities. The murder of your brother Sarevok was a task no one could accomplish, but you did. You survived your parents, deaths, and then your foster parent's death you are a survivor Thorn, you act with the competency of a true offspring of Bhaal. If this is not apparent to you, then let me say, it is apparent to me and to many others, but I caught you first."

He had a crazed look about his broken face. Thorn could almost pity such a miserable specimen of a man if he were not matched with such sadistic deeds and words.

"But how can you profit from my ascension? Surely you can not think that I would treat you to any special honors?"

The mage looked at her with something that could have been described as incredulity. _Your _ascension? Silly girl, you do not even begin to understand. I am preening you for something much more glorious and much more profitable for me. A streak of something poisonous flashed in his eyes, Thorn shrunk beneath it. "You, and your sister."

She lashed out at him with her fists. The first blow hit him in the chest, which omitted a solid, yet resounding thump like a drum. The next struck him in the jaw, and a spray of black blood showered upon her face. He caught her wrists, but she continued to thrash, her vision blurred with tears, and salty rancor.

"You bastard! Where is she? What have you done with her? What do you want from us? You madman, you monster!" He appeared almost stung by her last piece of abuse, and his eyes took on a deadly hue.

"Monster! Yes monster! Come then my prey, you are ready for the next lesson. Come, a lesson in hatred, and may you break beneath its weight!"

He pulled her away.

A hole in the air shifted silently across the smooth, stone floor. It was a long hallway, and the torches provided little light, which only served to deepen its concealment. Its feet scarcely made a sound as they tread lightly upon the dry hall, walking slowly, heel to toe, one hand splayed tensely ahead of it so that it seemed to scrape rather then walk. Listen closely and you might note that it seemed to sniff. Suddenly the creature froze, its unrelenting vigilance had repaid it. A crimson sheen like the glimmer of spilled wine twinkled in and out of sight upon the floor. Slowly it stooped beside the phantom puddle, its hands began to move. For several minutes it labored at a tedious rate, sweat was dripping profusely from its forehead, and it had to bite its tongue to keep its teeth from chattering. At last a faint click was heard like the cracking of porcelain and the red disappeared. It stood reaching beneath its cloak to dab at its damp skin with a rag, hands shaking. Soon over a dozen more heavily bundled figures approached it

from behind. They surged forward over the now darkened highway like a river of oil. One of them wrapped a strong arm around the former and pulled him after them in great haste.

_Next chapter is the escape from the dungeons. My own take on it, don't miss it!_


	4. The Bird Cage

**Chapter 4. The Bird Cage**

Magic had been his only lover for some time. Even before his soul was stolen, wrung from his tissues like spoiled sap, he could feel it taking the place of all the love he bestowed upon others. It wanted his full attention, and would suffer no rivals. It fed off of him like a parasite, but he was not an altogether unwilling host. Truth be told he was immensely gifted in the realm of sorcery and enjoyed to the point of obsession bending the limits of reality as a child enjoys bending his toys into all kinds of curious shapes, and designs, only he possessed unimaginable insight into every atom of the toys he manipulated. With his soul gone it had become his only source of pleasure, as

it was the single thing left able to evoke such a response from so hollow a breast. It is strange how we often are only able to derive happiness from the thing that took it away. But now something was different. Something inside him had changed, awakened.

It was night outside, but in the mage's underground catacombs in was always night. He was sitting in his laboratory, a room that seemed to shake with a foul pulse. As he did not sleep, he frequently spent the dark hours locked away in that throbbing den, studying, concocting potions, and fashioning spells a feat that few would find less then impossible, but the mage was a true genius of his murderous craft, he was an artist. But that night the words would not shape, the combustions would not materialize, try as he might the pictures he formed in his mind would not come into focus, his fingers were sweating and trembling unable to create the proper motions. Always his head was filled with images of her. The raven-haired woman, the black eyed Bhaalspawn, she was a fever raging through his minds eye. He saw her face everywhere, every sound was her voice, and her name was every word in every book. He had gone to her cell that morning not to give her the wine, but to look at her, to drink her in like a tonic. Then he had taken her away for another lesson, and he had hurt her, he had shone her things that no mortal eyes should see. When he left again she was weeping and each exclamation of remorse was like a dagger in his chest. He had dug his fingernails into his arm until it bled to try and ease the pain, to try to regain his former numbness. Now he felt strange maybe sad, but he did not recognize it, up until her arrival he had felt nothing but brief torrid outbursts of anger, but now this, this sensation that left him stranded and weak and trembling, he did understand it. It was the first time.

At last exasperated, he ceased his attempts at spell casting, and threw himself heavily into a chair, one of his clammy hands pressing hard against his forehead as if to crush it.

"Thorn, Thorn it is not such a beautiful name. It is simple, and harsh, a woman's name should always be florid. Mina, Esperanza..." But he choked on his words it was all a lie. He knew that Thorn was the most beautiful name he had ever heard in his life, the most beautiful word, the most beautiful sound ever to grace his tongue. The hollow man had not felt anything like he did then in so long, almost to the point of forgetting. It was as if he had been set on fire with a thousand flaming knifes, and he writhed in his seat from the pleasure and the pain. Almost against his will he pictured her alabaster neck, the bare, shapely leg that trailed out of a tear in her robe while he watched her sleeping in the cell earlier that day, the delicate contours of the hard white hand he had held, her firm body resting in his arms, pressed against his chest, the sound and heat of her breath on his face. His blood was ablaze. In a tumultuous current of fury he sprung from his chair like a cat determined to bring this madness to an end.

Thorn crouched wretchedly in the dark. Her body and mind felt spent, drained as if they had been dashed against a hard surface. She was frightened to find that she would cease to breath and would have to will herself to begin again, biting her knuckle, reminding her flesh that it was not yet cold. Time had stopped, and as she waited in the tangible stillness she tried to fathom how long she had been locked away beneath the earth with this mad man. It had to have been at least a year. She wondered if her sister and friends were dead yet, or if they lay in wait like her in some darksome, dreadful hole, trying to breath. A picture show was running through her head. Again and again she saw the people he had tortured in front of her, the sizzle and bubble of fat and blood, cold slick bone against her skin. Thorn knew she would fall apart if she did not escape.

"Imoen! Imoen! Jahiera! Minsc! Khalide!" They were desperate cries. Then she remembered the body those men carried the night they were ensnared, it had had a broken neck. One of them was dead. Had Khalide been murdered? Had she had failed to protect Jahiera contrary to everything she had promised? Would she ever know?

Suddenly, the vibrations of feet moving rapidly over stone quivered in her marrow. Sitting up, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, her mind hung on the edge of an abyss as she anticipated with trepidation who the alien noises might belong to. When he finally did reach her cell, and clapped on the lights his face had blanched, and the veins bulged vigorously making him look more distorted then ever. He lunged forward, and Thorn felt herself shatter as his hand closed aground her bicep like an iron trap. Then she was being dragged along the slippery floor.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?" She entreated shrilly, but he was unresponsive save for an increase in pressure of his grip on her arm. Eventually they came to a large empty space where the air was thin and flowed in wide currents. Compartments of rusty metal like monstrous birdcages hung from the ceiling, some with the mutilated remains of corpses still inside. The suspended jails' rusty gore stained limbs tore a pit in Thorn's stomach. She stopped trying when he dragged her to an empty enclosure and thrust her in. She slumped against the bars and closed her eyes letting herself forget to breath.

Meanwhile the man glared at her with what resembled hatred, but upon observation it might be noted that there was something ravenous about his gaze.

"You have put a spell of enchantment upon me haven't you?"

But Thorn did not hear him she was slipping into the tide of her circulatory system.

"Answer me."

Still she sat unresponsive. He began to chant the incantations of the Horrid Wilting Spell, he would make her bloodless lips red with poison air. But when the final word of the hex was about to leave his lips he faltered, and the magic dissipated altogether. He saw her through the bars her head so gentle so lovely, reclined, eyes shut, at peace, wholly removed from the world. He tried to remember what sleep felt like, and the fire returned to his blood. He tried to remember and he reached for her.

What gave them away was the explosion. One of black shrouded intruders had missed something. His perception had failed him. There was a crimson pool he never found until it was too late. It had taken one mistake, and then a million intricate mechanisms of both magical and scientific make had combusted. His body was lifted some eight meters into the air and hurled like an eggshell against the far wall by an enormous, rolling belch of yellow fire and sparks. Then there was the noise to consider. Whosoever resided in that area clapped their hands against their ears in agony as a bang like the roar of contained thunder impaled their ears and made their skin leap from their flesh. The corridor immediately filled with smoke. There was an interminable period of total quiet. Then the fighting started. The rapid pounding of weighty footsteps rumbled louder and louder like an avalanche until it shook the place of the disturbance. The presence of something large and menacing filled the room. Deep guttural battle cries arose from unseen giants, the hiss and breeze of arrows, and the fray erupted. Men fought creatures many times their match in height and girth, fists the size of boulders crushed squealing, scrambling people into bloody pulp. The resounding clank of steel against steel riddled the air like hideous, cackling laughter. Glowing missiles of magic shot in all directions. The atmosphere was impregnated with the infectious stench of fear and frenzy, and all was hidden in an impenetrable wall of smoke.

The first to die in the ensuing combat was all but forgotten. Lying oblivious where he fell shattered from the rough impact of the wall. I say he was _almost _forgotten because a little pink haired mage remembered him all to well, and it was not a wall he had hit, but a stout row of iron bars that formed the cell in which she had lived the past two days. This was the sister this was Imoen. She had been sleeping on the moldy hay when her acute senses alerted her to the presence of others in the hall. Her highly sensitive ears picked up the slightest tremor of footsteps somewhere not far in front of her. Creeping forward as silently as the pause between thoughts she peered into the seemingly opaque blackness when she thought she saw an even deeper shade in the shape of a man sneaking along the passageway, then several more. She shook her head to make sure she wasn't still asleep, when she heard a dry click, and then an ear shattering blast like a sweltering, heavy hand thrust her against the wall several yards back. Simultaneously she saw the body of the unfortunate instigator of the disturbance smash against her cell bars with a sickening crack. The force of the blow jarred her head and back against the stone barrier, and a rain of whizzing splinters of wood and steel whined in her ears and showered around her like a hale of missiles, burying themselves in the rock just inches from her body. She screamed but nobody could hear it. Then the fighting had begun, and with a throbbing head, and imploding lungs, Imoen finally crawled from where she had crumpled, this was her only chance. She reached where the man lay. His hand had come to rest just inside her cell (fortunately still intact.) A gold ring glinted invitingly upon one blistered finger. The little band of metal was hot, but shielding her fingers with a piece of her cloak she managed to pry it from the smoking digit. Cautiously she stood and felt around the door for the lock. She began to pry at the keyhole with the little gem. Stray arrows brushed her cheek affectionately before they struck the walls behind her. The girl flinched trying to use her training to remain absolutely coolheaded, and concentrated even in the heat of a mêlée. The air was thin in her lungs, she was gasping for breath partially from the acrid smelling smoke that smothered her nostrils, and eyes, and partially from the heavy fear that stung her flesh like venomous needles and made her skin grow cold and clammy like a fish. She murmured under her breath as she worked.

"Over, under...under, twist...no, left! Right...right...push... twist, twist! Oh come on damn you!" She felt the metal gears give beneath her skilled, sweaty fingers, and she breathed a sigh of relief, which was quickly stifled as the colossal torso of a stone golem collided with the bars making the entire confines shake violently and causing her to nearly lose her footing, and her stomach. Scrambling on all fours she made her way through the gray haze hoping against hope not to be noticed or accidentally skewered by a drifting arrow or wayward sword.

The man whose name was never spoken touched the steel cage. Thorn was still unconscious. In her head she could see Imoen and Jahiera cuddled up with her in a sleeping bag. She could feel the warmth of their bodies along her own and the sweet veil of their hair across her face, she was safe.

He was trembling. Try as he might he could not bring himself to harm her, rather he felt an overpowering desire to stroke her hair and feel the heat of her skin against his lips. He could barely contain himself, and things might have gone ill for Thorn if not at that very moment a flesh golem large as a tree had not galloped into the room. It trained its black lifeless eyes on the Mage who in turn mastered himself, and listened.

"More intruders have entered the complex Master." It's zombie voice sent a chill through the woman deep enough to cause her to awake and watch the discourse.

Her captors face was fixed upon receiving the news.

"They attack sooner they we expected. Come I will _deal _with them." With that word the mage cast dimension door and their forms were swallowed up in a ring of dazzling light.

Thorn was alone. A blur of malformed thoughts swam through her head. Who were these intruders? Had they come to save them or would they simply be slaughtered with all the rest? Was she going to die? The answer to the last query seemed the most apparent to her, and she collapsed on the floor of her prison exhausted.

"I'm sorry Khalide, I'm so sorry, please forgive me, please..." Then the comfort of the dark took her again. While she lay inert a man clad all in brown fled into the room. His eyes were wild with panic, his breathing was elevated and sweat stained his shirt and pants. However he ran too slowly. A flickering ball of magic like a flamboyant meteorite was in hot pursuit. It closed in, and with a single unearthly wail it caught him. He exploded into a pile of sparkling dust, and gory limbs. The latter objects bounced along the floor for a time like children's toys. Thorn saw none of it.

Suddenly she felt two hands pawing her, and she curled her body into the tiniest ball she could create, knowing it was the mage again come to finish her off.

"Wake up you. Wake up! Come on, we have to get out of here!" The urgent voice that stroked her ears however did not belong to the heartless reptile, but to a young woman. Thorn sat up and was rewarded with the instant recognition of her sister Imoen. She pressed her rescuer to her breast. Who can accurately describe the feelings that passed between them then? They thought they were dead, they thought they had seen the last of each other. Their hearts ignited in a whirlwind of love and relief, and misery. Thorn breathed in the lilac smell of her sibling's fine hair, stroking it again and again as if to ascertain its existence. They both feared that this was only some deep night fever dream that would fade as soon as the sickness receded. Thorn kissed her tresses, her shoulders, cheeks, then held her again, and began to weep. Raw, violent storms of sorrow, the kinds that shake, and rattle the organs like a hurricane of the body.

"Imoen! God, God, God! God help me! I have my Imoen!" These joyous exclamations were punctuated with piercing sobs. Throughout the gale of blissful grief Imoen said not a word, but clutched her black eyed sister to her like a crucifix until it had waned for both of them.

Thorn held her at arms length as they continued to sit together united on the cold floor of their single cage. Her sister looked older then she had remembered her. Those wild flower blue eyes were now speckled with shards of gray and ringed with dark, tired circles. The rosy blush that used to be so quick to rise to the extremities of her body was not present now, instead her skin appeared almost ashen, sickly. In addition when Thorn had embraced her she felt the sharp angles of bones beginning to poke through the cloak. Her cheeks were hollow, and her pink hair was limp, and dirty, but she smiled cheerily.

"How do I look?"

"Beautiful." And Thorn meant it.

"You do too, but so sleepy. What has he done to you? I swear if he hurt you in any way I'll be back to give him the last spanking he'll ever have."

Thorn laughed, but closed her lips over the willful sound. It tasted and rang unnaturally in such a dismal place.

"But what has he done to you? Where were you all this time? I asked, but he wouldn't tell me."

Imoen grimaced.

"You don't want to know. It was horrible, he...he showed me things."

She was right Thorn didn't want to know at that moment, and Imoen didn't really want to tell.

"Come on we should get moving for now. Who knows when..." Thorn struggled inwardly, "When _he _will return. Have you seen the others?"

"We were separated, I have no idea where they could be. Probably anywhere in this ridiculous hole, who's idea was it to dig a pit with so much floor space? You couldn't possibly keep it all tidy. Though I suppose if you..."

"Imoen!" Thorn hissed stepping out of the swinging impound and pulling her sister after her. "I promise you, if we get out of here alive we'll have a long and serious discussion about just that, but for now we must search." Her words were stern, but secretly Thorn grinned to find that Imoen was still her same jokester self.

"I'm gonna hold you to that." Her companion responded with mock seriousness.

They forged into the gloom.

_Thank you, to my second reviewer offshoreecho. I'm glad you love Irenicus's character though I warn you. In my version of this tale his emotions begin to be restored to him, but he has been so corrupted and has lived without them for so long that they ultimately bring his undoing, and many others as well._

_Read and Review people. Thanx._

_By the way when I say that the "rusty gore stained limbs of the suspended jail tore a pit in Thorn's stomach." I didn't mean that literally I meant it figuratively._


	5. Flight From the Dungeons

Greetings and Salutations! I need to vent a little before you read this chapter and inform you as to the contents there in. The reason it took me so long to produce is because this entire thing consists of the escape from Irenicus's dungeon. When I played the game for the first time some of it was interesting, but now it has become just plain boring with little room to maneuver. However, I must still write it in because it reveals some pivotal realizations about the nemesis of this tale, and I really wanted to just get it all out of the way in one fell swoop instead of having to agonize over it for four chapters. **The flight from the dungeons will consist of two parts** of which this in the first. It has been exhausting to write. I promise you that I have made a sincere attempt to spice it up as much as possible in my own way. I must also warn you that I have abridged it as I saw fit. I have eliminated pointless crap like that random Genie that pops up after you escape, all those annoying goblins and flappy things etc. I also do not know all the dialogue by heart thus some of the original dialogue may be inaccurate. Enough talk, more read! So bare with me! And enjoy. (I hope)

**Chapter 5. Flight from the Dungeons**

A regular booming issued from somewhere distant in the dungeons; the walls were pulsing with some secret battle. Each tremor in the ground plucked at the womens' already frayed nerves and they found themselves clinging to each other as they walked. They were still in the cavernous chamber of the birdcages. It seemed to go on forever. The floors' structure consisted of an intricate web of perforated steel, and they found that if they peered closely they could see the floor below. A red glow issued from those holes and a heat as if the floor sheltered a smoldering demon ready to rise and devour them all. Despite the dim light from the hovering lamps it was not enough. Imoen walked slightly ahead of Thorn checking for traps. The dark eyed woman followed shivering and straining in the twilight, at the point of despair in the search for her friends. They were surrounded by those hideous swinging confines the squeals of their chains slicing the air like hellish screams. The decomposing remains of what must once have been people lay at the bottom of many, which of them belonged to their friends?

Suddenly, the two siblings heard a sound that filled them with both hope and overpowering dread. The muffled pitch of voices. They stopped dead in their tracks. Imoen slowly gestured for Thorn to step beside her.

"Who are they do you think?" She whispered. "They certainly sound human, but so did that Mage. Should we cast invisibility? I have it memorized..."

"No. No spell casting. Whoever they are they'd be sure to sense magic. Can we get closer?" Thorn's heart was in her mouth.

"Not without the risk of being seen. What if it's one of His minions?"

"What if it isn't?" Thorn countered, hope slowly overcoming her fear. "One of them sounds like a woman what if it's Jahiera?"

"Oh ok, fine. But if we get caught, I blame you."

"Agreed."

Ever so cautiously they crept forward, hardly daring to breath. After a second they could make out two more such cages only these were welded to the ground. An especially bright lamp hung over each. Eventually a reclining woman was discernable in one and a man pacing the other restlessly. The sisters were overjoyed to hear the following dialogue.

"Patience, Minsc you great oaf! You harm no one but yourself with such childish outbursts. Thorn will come, she must."

The man in turn halted his fidgeting, and began to tremble with rage. "If Minsc and Boo ever get their butt kicking paws around that evil Mage he will know our wrath!"

"Thorn! Imoen!" Jahiera stood and reached through the bars as the two appeared on the scene running towards them.

Thorn grasped her strong brown hands and kissed them exultantly. The druid's weathered face grinned gently.

"I knew you would come. There was never a doubt in my mind. I knew. You would not forsake me."

"What happened?" Imoen queried.

The brown woman immediately became hard. "Explanations must wait, we have much to do. Have you seen Khalide?"

Thorn ground her teeth as the vivid image of the faceless body with the broken neck invaded her brain she remained silent.

"That could not have been Khalide." She persuaded herself. Khalide would never die it had to have been one of the lackey's who attacked them. Misc probably killed him, and his companions were carrying him away and all other traces of the struggle. That was what happened, Khalide was very much alive.

"Was he not with you?" Imoen persisted.

"I never saw him after that fight. I'm worried, Thorn have you seen him?"

She had to answer, even though something in the pit of her stomach rebelled. "No. No I have not. We'll find him you'll see. First, we must get you out of this prison. Do you know where the key to your cell is kept?"

"I saw a golem leave with it through that door in the corner, but be careful getting it. By the Valor I do not trust one inch of this place."

"And what about Minsc?"

Jahiera snorted. "There isn't even a door to his, only look and see."

They obeyed, and to their great disappointment his cage was indeed doorless. The brawny warrior was currently absorbed in attempting to twist the bars with his hands. Thorn was glad to see him. Minsc had a face like a lion. The features were fierce, sharp, and animal. One could only see how gentle he could be when they looked into his eyes, which were brown, and soft like folds of velvet. He was one of the gentlest human beings Thorn knew, but she had also seen him in the heat of anger, and it was usually a dangerous thing. He was in such a state then. His was visage sweltering, channels of sweat ran down the surface of his skin and stained his bloodied shirt.

"Minsc will be free!" He grunted. "These bars can not hold my wrath! Oh!" He looked at his rescuers as if for the first time. "It is the little mages. Boo was sure you would save him!"

"Minsc, isn't there a door to your cage?"

A mischievous grin illuminated his rosy countenance. "Nope, no door for Minsc and Boo! I am proud that they feared me too much to stick me in a cell with a lock and key. But now Thorn and little Imoen are here! They will rescue us Boo!"

They were in quite a quandary.

"And how do you propose we do that?"

"You are a hero!" He replied confidently. "Hero's can do anything. Right Boo?"

"A hero still requires a lock and key!"

"Then you don't intend to rescue us at all." His brow drooped with profound dissapointment. "You mean to leave Minsc and Boo here... why you, you, you shall feel the wrath of Minsc and Boo! YYYAAAAAAHHH!!!!"

The big warrior's face was black with the rush of blood, veins standing out of the top of his bald head, and across his mighty arms, which in turn rippled and bulged with the strain as he gave the bars one final twist. The latter gave an agonizing crack and then detached all together. Thorn and Imoen ducked for cover.

"Ha! Minsc is free! I broke the bars with my berserker strength!" Then he turned upon them. Thorn was too slow and he seized her shoulders whipping her around. "Now I will get you! You, you..." Thorn cringed. "Oooooooo! You are a smart one! You said what you did just to get me mad. You know you are almost as smart as Boo sometimes." With that his sinister features became pink and jovial. He embraced Thorn hard, who was still recovering from her fright. She thought her ribs would snap.

"Nice...to...see...you...too...Minsc! Minsc... let go you're...crushing me!"

"Oh! I'm sorry!" He chuckled relinquishing his grasp to her great relief. "Sometimes I forget my own strength!" He reached for Imoen, who anticipating the same treatment dove behind Thorn.

"Minsc you adorable idiot!" Jahiera chided. "Leave the poor women in one piece!"

"Yes, yes Boo says enough with reunions! Time to do some righteous butt kicking!"

"Ah Minsc I see you still have that...uh...rodent."

He held the caramel ball of quivering fluff aloft proudly.

"Where ever Minsc is Boo is sure not to be far away."

"But how ever did you keep him from being taken during our capture?" Thorn inquired with genuine perplexity.

The warrior smiled. "Minsc is a big man. There are many places on him in which Boo could hide."

There was a queasy pause in which everyone's imagination ran wild.

"I don't want to think about it." said Imoen.

"Yes, a fine idea. Come on big guy..."

"Remember Thorn..." Jahiera cut in.

"Mmm." She replied rubbing her aching sides.

"Be careful, I'm sure not everyone is off fighting that battle."

With that word of caution the three companions made off in the direction Jahiera had indicated, Minsc cooing and stroking his little hamster affectionately all the way.

The room was dark when they reached it.

"Should we just go in?" Imoen whispered.

"Minsc and Boo will skewer anything inside!"

"No wait." Thorn clapped her hands, and a hovering lamp spouted a dingy yellow flame, the rays staining their faces like old urine.

"Not a bad trick." Imoen smiled approvingly. "Where did you learn it?"

Thorn flinched as in her mind's eye she saw the mage perform that same action to activate the lights in the room of the twisted chair.

"I don't know."

The room was plain and appeared rather neglected. A shimmering layer of silver dust carpeted every surface, and spider webs without spiders filled the voids. They immediately began sniffing around for the key. Thorn looked under a table to find a pile of rusty weaponry. She selected a plain staff, fingering a sizable dent in the metal.

"Well it's not much, but it's a start."

"Hey I got it!" cried Imoen holding aloft a glinting gold key from where she had been digging in a chest.

A shadow like an ambulatory mountain appeared over her shoulder. Thorn's blood grew chill, and Imoen seeing the terrible look in her companions' eyes spun around and screamed. A flesh golem regarded them indifferently. Imoen extended the key as if for protection. Minsc seized a bastard sword in his beating palm.

"Prisoners back to your cells it is the master's will."

Realizing then that the beast was not programmed to perform acts of hostility Thorn stepped in front of Imoen.

"And who is your master?" It was the question that lingered on her tongue, metallic like a blood stain.

"Back to your cells, do not anger the master." Was its monotonous reply. It didn't even seem to see them.

"Forget it. We will get nothing out of this mindless beast."

Thorn tried to conceal her disappointment as they made for Jahiera's cell.

Imoen was still trembling when they had released the druid.

"Child you are so pale." The druid's voice was full of maternal concern. "Whatever is the matter?"

"Let's just say that not everyone is off fighting the battle."

The latter comment sent a kind of deep freeze through the party a prickling along the back of their necks. They walked in silence.

At length, the even stone of the passage opened up into a rough-hewn grotto. The rock was pink and glistening with moisture, like the fleshy interior of a yawning mouth. Here and there pockets of jutting crystals of pastel hues sparkled as petrified tear drops, all this in great contrast to the cold, black adamantine that they had been surrounded by since their arrival. It seemed natural as though the relentless ebb and flow of water had carved it out of the stone since the beginning of time. They could here it now, droplets falling and plinking upon the rosy floor like silver bells, and flowing along the sensual curves in the walls. The pristine beauty of the place temporarily lifted the burden of the last few days from their heads, and they breathed freely, and looked without fear. Thorn felt Jahiera's hand brush her shoulder.

"Even in a place so devoid of life nature will find a home."

But Thorn was not listening. She felt drawn to a small pool of glimmering water that had collected in a groove of pink crystals. Standing over it she drew breath at the loveliness of the sight. The gems turned blue beneath the water, burning with a living radiance, and reflecting splotches of azure luminosity across her moon white face. A voice like a mental breeze issued from the depths.

_"Taste of the water, and it will taste of you." _

The liquid maintained its luminosity in her hand, filling her mouth and chest with the penetrative tang of cold. To her astonishment the image of a beating metropolis materialized on the surface. It had high towers that manifested to be still growing before her eyes. Then the half bat, half baby from her dream flew into view, and she covered her throat with her hands, suddenly feeling weak barely able to stand the water rising up to meet her. Next was a man who looked vaguely familiar, he was handsome with beautiful golden skin and eyes that burned with passion. He was kissing a still more beautiful woman, her sweaty flaxen tresses clinging to his bare chest. Behind them the sky was torrid with an imminent monsoon. This sensual image was replaced by a person she had never seen before. He was not nearly as handsome as the first man, his skin professed the color and quality of charcoal, and his hair was white and hung in knots about his face, but he looked at her with deep set, sad eyes, he looked into her. Thorn could feel her soul opening before him, so willing. She found herself irresistibly reaching for him someone to fill the empty space in her breast that pained her now and then. He turned away, and she knew then that he had died.

It was Imoen's voice that finally brought her back to reality.

"Are you ok?"

Thorn hugged her chest feeling dirty, violated as though someone had seen her naked.

"Yes, let's get out of here."

They wandered on aimlessly. Pressing together like a band of frightened rats in a maze. Minsc and Imoen walked in front she scanning the corridor ahead for traps, and he with sword out and ready to strike. Gradually the air grew hotter; Thorn concluded that they must be delving deeper into the earth. Then they were sweltering; even Boo sitting in the crook of Minsc's perspiring neck was damp and clammy, fur gray with animal sweat. Soon an even more disturbing discovery presented itself. The ruckus of battle was growing in volume and intensity until Thorn could feel the tremors of each explosion beneath her fingertips as they grazed the wall and through the bottoms of her boots, rattling along her spine. Boom, boom, boom. The tension was palpable.

"If I don't get out of here alive, I want to be cremated do you understand?" Jahiera was ardently trying to impress this desire upon anyone who would listen. "I won't be stuffed underground like some kind of sewer rat one more time. Do you hear? Just light a match and..."

"Look!" Imoen shouted darting through a doorway that hadn't come to anyone else' s attention.

"Wait for Minsc and Boo!"

"Imoen stop!" Thorn cried trying to repress the sense of dread spawning in her belly.

They all reached her simultaneously where she had frozen. The druid grabbed her arm yanking her back.

"Foolish girl you will get us all killed!"

Boom.

A sound like the shattering of the sky above their heads split the air. The entire cavern rattled like a baby's toy. Thorn's muscles refused their duty and she was thrown against the wall clawing at its bare surface for support in the swirling maelstrom of motion. Imoen screeched and clung to Jahiera. Minsc wen't down with a mighty bellow like a pile of rocks, the lights dimmed, flickered, dimmed, flickered, and went out altogether.

Thorn stood, the cool stonewall grating against her spine and shoulder blades. Nobody spoke the silence was defending. All that she could perceive was an inky blankness of unfathomable depth it was the only sensation left to her besides the chill of the wall, which she continued to cling to struck with the terrifying idea that if she let go she would spin out into space. This was the same darkness experienced by moles burrowing in their tunnels, roots delving through soil, and people buried alive. The darkness of the underground, of the subterranean, a place unto itself where reality is washed clean and recreated. She could almost see the distorted visage of the mage approaching her through the void like an ashen flame. Her breathing became short and rapid she could feel the seething cauldron of panic rising up to her chin about to engulf her sanity in one potent rush. But then there was the water. She had been unable to hear it until that point, when there was absolute quiet. Faint gurgling noises and the rushing of air as if the whole room were gasping for breath. The lights came on. Everyone ground their searing pupils with the heel of their hands, their vision a fantastic explosion of wraith lights and crackling fragments. Finally Jahiera spoke.

"Can we really be that close?" Her voice was a gentle breath. "Is that turmoil actually right above our heads? By the horns of Sylvanias I had no idea."

"Nor I" Thorn answered incredulously, but said no more, the cause of the throaty murmur was revealed. They were surrounded by tanks, bubbling vats of water that omitted a luminance akin to that of the crystal cavern. All these tanks were connected by black tubes to a kind of battery like a wretched octopus. The uncanny machine's billowing sides inhaled and exhaled steadily. The entire room purported to be the anatomy of some great beast, and this pulsating contraption was its heart. Fascinated and horrified Thorn laid her cheek against its surface listening to its roaring breath in her ears; it even possessed the warmth of the living.

"I don't like it here." She heard Imoen's voice through the din. "I can feel something looking at us, listening, let's go!"

"My God."

They all turned to look at Minsc. He was standing rigidly in front of one of the tanks his huge frame began to quiver. When they got closer they could smell it first. Fear, stagnant flowing from the glass cubicle like a white-hot light. Suspended inside was a man. Or it had been at one point in time, but it was tiny and shriveled. The skin sagging from its frame, limbs stunted and twisted, its great bulbous eyes devoid of pupils, yellow, white bulging bundles of nerves etched red in the slimy surface. There it floated in its fluid environment like a monstrous fetus festering in a fetid womb. Thorn felt the bile rise in her throat, her limbs were paralyzed, cold as with death. The four companions stared the light of the creature's eyes glinting in the depths of their weary faces.

"Minsc and Boo have never seen anything like this." The blanched warrior whispered. Suddenly the object of their attention opened the crumpled hole in its face to release a silent howl, they all sank beneath it.

"Master!" Thorn knew it was speaking to her. "Master why have you forsaken me? Have I not served you faithfully? Did you not promise to restore me after the accident? Master please do not leave me to rot! I can not stand it anymore!"

Thorn shuddered. "I am not your..."

"MASTER PLEASE! MERCY!"

"Master!" A voice beckoned from somewhere behind them, and they whirled around to see another pickled man in his tank. "Master the ants they burn! They are all over my skin, it burns, it burns!"

"Master!" Another cried. "I have not seen the sun for twenty years! Gods do not leave me to die in the dark!"

"Master help me!"

"Master save me!

"Master why have you forsaken me?!"

"I have not seen the sun in twenty years!"

"The ants! It burns!"

"Master please let me die!"

"IT BURNS!"

Thorn crushed her palms against her ears, their heinous voices like the wails of so many tortured cats, screaming and screaming in an unending universe of agony! She fled. Blindly, eyes clamped tight shut, hands pressing the sides of her ringing head until she thought her skull would implode. She would have flown forever, ran from those wreckages of life, from their accusations, and their pleas, had not two strong arms enfolded her in a binding embrace. The girl thrashed, and screamed in her incarceration, her brain livid and electric with terror. They had caught her; the shriveled men had caught her! She could feel their broken infant limbs pawing her body. No it was the mage! The mage! His eyes were rolling back in his head. She had to break free.

"Wake up child, wake up! You are safe now. It is Jahiera your Jahiera!" A hand closed over her eyes and the treacherous delusions vanished, replaced by Jahiera's savage beauty cutting through her fever dream. Thorn dissolved in her arms, exhausted.

"Oh, Jahiera. How could he do this? It's as if human beings were so much dirt to him. He has no humanity of his own!"

"I know, I know, but stop this sobbing now, and be strong. We must withstand this now stop! You've got to pull yourself together; weakness has no place here. Stand up!"

Thorn wearily obeyed, having no other choice, and together they continued to forge a path through the labyrinth of nightmares.

_I hope you liked that. The other reason I took so long to post this was not because I am bored or stuck or would like to stop writing it. I am just so busy with school, and when I'm not at school I'm at karate, and when I'm not at karate I'm at school or doing tons of homework. Plus I get no sleep all week and thus wander around in a kind of blank stupor. Not only that it's a new school which is stressful, and I'm gonna stop unloading personal problems onto the internet now. I thank you sincerely for your wonderful reviews._

**Valerius Catullus- **I'm pleased you find it interesting. I did not know that I didn't accept anonymous reviews, thank you very much for that useful piece of intelligence. I have changed that now. Hope you continue to read!

**Lady of Dragons**- Glad you like my story. Let's see my thoughts on Anomen hmmmm... well I do not _hate_ him, however I do find his romantic conversations rather cliché and annoying. It's so sexist how the male PC gets three romance choices and the female only gets one. Don't they realize that we like variety too? Guess not. Anyway how can I tell you this without giving everything away? As I said in the story summary this is a tale of **unrequited **love (wink, wink, nudge, nudge.) so I guess you could say I put Anomen through a great deal of emotional pain if not always physical. Just keep in mind that the story I'm trying to write here deals with all kinds of love, and dependency. So Thorn may _try_ to love Anomen, but it doesn't work out because the guy that's really for her won't show up until much later, I alluded to him in this chapter actually. And now that I've just told you stuff that was supposed to be a surprise I'm gonna stop now, and wait expectantly for your reviews.

**Offshoreecho**- Hello again, and thank you very much! I agree there are many FF writers who don't know exactly how to get their point across, but I will try to avoid that the best that I can. We do need more people to write BG Fanfics, it's so lonely out here! It's like there's me and you, and one or two other people updating once in a blue moon, but that's it. Hopefully the creation of "Dark Alliance" will remedy that, but I doubt it.

**celestine1**- Thank you kindly. Hmmm, easy read, I don't like that if by that you mean light and fluffy, but I have a feeling you meant it as a complement, and if it was light and fluffy that's my fault anyway. Irenicus is a very complex character and a difficult one; so I'm happy that you think I'm doing a good job portraying him, believe me. Keep reviewing, tell me what you think por favor!

**VaguelyFamiliar**-Thank you, thank you, thank you etc. You write beautiful reviews, if I may be so bold. Sublimated is a word I have never heard before, which means I'm going to steal it from you and use it in this story at some point, thanx! I am making a sincere effort to keep Irenicus true to character, but yet at the same time make him my own. Your description of what you read was just the effect I wanted. I admit I'm no editor, and my spelling, punctuation, and grammar are far from perfect. I try to correct as much as I can myself, but I can't catch everything. You do not need to take the trouble to go through and edit it yourself; I should think that would be extremely tedious. Then again if you'd love to do it who am I to deny you something you love? If you could point out the glaring errors to me that would be most helpful, thank you. By the way, interesting pen name.

_Thank you all for your patience. For the Irenicus lovers out there he will be featured in the next chapter and frequently throughout this story. I will try to update as soon as possible, and if I were even considering halting this story I would warn you before hand so just give me time. _


	6. Flight form the Dungeons Continued

"_Hello! Well I finally did it. I said I would write that damn dungeon scenario in two parts, and I have. Phew! That was tough. WARNING_: _To all squeamish people, this chapter contains a very graphic description of a corpse, and if you've played the game I'm assuming you know who's it is. That's all for now, enjoy. _ Chapter 6. Flight From the Dungeons Continued 

It was to be the last time they saw one of the preserved men. His name was Revue, and they found him in a small bare room except for a little pile of gold, green from mold lying on a table. Thorn looked unerringly into his sightless eyes and felt only pity she had no more fear to give.

"Master!" He rasped. "Master have you come to end my torment? Wait..." He drifted closer to the glass. "You are not the Master, you are She, the Bhaalspawn."

"How did you know?"

"I see and hear many things others cannot. Please..." His tiny voice shook with underlying emotion. "You see what I am. What I have become. Will you not help me? Ah! I sense the pity in you. You will help me."

"First," There was a lump, a knot of suppressed grief obstructing her throat, and she struggled to form the words. "Tell me. Tell me who and what your master is."

The creature paused and dragged its fingers down the rippling contours of its face.

"Who he is and what he is has many definitions. I am not sure even he knows the truth, yet."

Imoen came and stood beside Thorn squeezing her hand in her own.

"He is a necromancer by the name of Irenicus."

Thorn heard, and it was the first time.

"Boo says that is an evil name! And he is a very bad man!" Minsc shouted heatedly.

"I was his servant." The man in the tank continued solemnly. "One of his most prized assistants. I carried out his orders, conveyed his commands. Then there was an accident in his lab and I was badly burned he..." The weight of the memory compelled him to stop for breath. "He said this chamber would keep me alive until he could heal me. That was so long ago."

Thorn pressed the warm glass with her fingers, biting her lower lip.

"And he never even visited you."

"No, that is he used to once upon a time, but gradually his presence grew less frequent, and I had not seen him for years, until last night."

"Why did he come to you last night?"

"He never spoke, but I knew, I knew. I could see it in his eye. They were burning, burning like red-hot coals. He didn't look at me. I don't think he saw me. He was running away, trying to run away!"

"Away from what?"

"He pressed his head between his hands! He scratched his nails against the wall you can still see the marks!"

They looked and in accordance to his words there were many ugly, white gashes in the rock.

"What was he..."

"From you."

Thorn pressed Imoen's hand tightly.

"From me?" She gasped.

"From the feelings you evoke. He had none left. He was a shell, numb until you..."

Thorn turned away her entrails quaking.

"No more. It isn't true."

"But Thorn..." Jahiera attempted to dissuade her.

Ignoring her companion she turned back to the source of her agitation.

"Thank you, you've been most helpful. That is all we need to know. Now how can I free you?"

"I have no more wish to live. Life pains me. I can no longer endure waiting. I weary of this world. Remove the power cells." He indicated two glowing capsules that lay inserted into the bottom of his tank. "Remove them and I will be done with this torment."

"But don't you want..." Imoen started to say.

"Do it!" Revue's voice was an suffering squeal. "What I want, what I want! I lost everything I ever wanted so long ago that the feeling is no longer left to me! Instead there is only this debilitating, physical yearning to be free of this mangled flesh that is my prison. So don't talk to me of want! You know not the meaning of the word!"

This sudden tirade seemed to have dispelled his last store of strength, and he would do nothing, but shake for what seemed like hours. Thorn clutched a cell in each hand, but when she attempted to remove them she hesitated. Her entire being revolted against this, mercy killing, it had always seemed wrong to her, but the man's sightless eyes opened and she felt their blind gaze fixed upon her, pleading, begging for death.

"Please." He said. "Please, give me peace."

She did it. The cubicle lights flickered. "Finally sweet sleep!"

It was over.

Thorn could feel the reproachful gazes of her companions prodding her back.

"It had to be done. He no longer suffers. Come let us go."

They made for the door when Thorn noticed that Imoen remained immobile, staring into the now black abyss of the tank.

"Imoen come." She entreated pulling gently on her arm.

"How did it come to this?"

"Come to what? What are you talking about?"

"How did we get here Thorn? All the way from the books of Candlekeep to this place? Where the living wish they were dead and the dead still live? How did we come to be in the thralls of a madman?"

"We are not in his thralls." Thorn replied as calmly as she could, wiping the tears from Imoen's cheeks were her thumb. "We are ourselves independent human beings. He cannot conquer forever."

At last she yielded to Thorn's insistent tugs and the company plodded on as people bending under an oppressive wind.

"Look everyone! Oh just look!"

"What is it Imoen?" Jahiera growled irritably. They had been walking for a great length of time since the incident with the preserved man finding nothing, but darkness and storerooms.This did not have a positive effect on anyone's morale least of all the open space loving druid.

"If this is another one of your mad dashes I'll have no part of it!"

"Oh don't be so touchy, just hurry up!"

What they found was more then astonishing. A richly furnished room lay enticingly before them. There were thick snow-white winter wolf pelts carpeting the floor, gently brushing their feet through the holes in their boots. Along the soft hued walls were gold leafed cupboards, towering armoires whose red oak surfaces slipped fluidly beneath their eager fingers. There were also bookshelves crammed with fat creased volumes, and in a fireplace in the center some logs were ablaze casting man shaped shadows along the ceiling.

"Isn't it delightful!" Imoen chirped kicking off her shoes and running her bare feet through the carpet. "It's like silk!"

"Here Boo warm your little paws by the fire!" Minsc cradled his hamster amidst the fragrant aroma of the burning logs.

But Thorn was ill at ease. She could smell a current of dread in the air radiating from the walls and floor and settling against her skin. It was a sensation like the drip of cold fingers creeping up her inner thighs and along her navel.

"Thorn look at this." Jahiera was standing over a desk overflowing with papers. Thorn moved to stand next to her. She picked up a thin sheet covered in messy scrawls. It was only just legible and she began to read.

_Year 226, Century 6, August 16._

_Recently I find myself unwell.........th...a......Bhaalspawn Thorn has been in residence here for two days now. She has a most distur...... effect on...e. ............ companions is dead._

The rest was completely illegible. It was as if the hand that wrote it was frantic and unable to form complete thoughts.

It was enough.

Jahiera looked at her with large flashing eyes. "It's _Him_."

Now she could feel it. The unnaturalness, it was his presence still lingering in that room pressing hard upon her like a lead rain.

"Put your boots on!"

Imoen looked at her surprised. "But Thorn..."

"Now! Don't you understand? This is His chamber! Minsc get away from there!"

It was too late. The warrior had been engrossed in the task of opening a particularly stubborn cupboard, and when he finally wrenched it ajar a familiar click was heard. A flaming projectile materialized in the air and raced towards Minsc's defenseless flesh. But so did Imoen, her sharp ears had registered the brief warning sound, then her lighting quick reflexes propelled her like a jungle cat across the room, and in one fantastic bound she had stricken the huge man from its path with the momentum of her body. However in the instant the fireball brushed passed them Minsc omitted a distressed yelp. Thorn and Jahiera knelt where the two had fallen their hearts battering the walls of their chest cavities.

Minsc's heavy featured face was contorted into an expression of intense pain. They pried his hand from his wrist to find to their great relief that the palm was only slightly burnt. Imoen threw herself across Minsc's heaving chest and sighed with release. Boo scrambled through her florescent hair and squeaked.

"Boo thanks you for saving me. You are quick even if you are only so small."

She gave his diaphragm an affectionate squeeze in response.

Jahiera meanwhile, was in the process of shoving the nozzle of a blue bottle of healing potion down his panting mouth.

"You clumsy idiot! What were you thinking? You know never to touch things without having Imoen check for traps first! Must you always have you cumbersome paws in everything? And what if the worst should have happened? Do you want to break me?"

Minsc beamed throughout this impassioned outburst.

"Break you? You are not so big as a dragon..."

"Yah but she's got breath as hot as one!" Imoen cut in. Jahiera made a play grab for her but she dodged it.

"But," Minsc continued. "You are not so little as Boo here, and will not break so easily."

Thorn felt the breath of happiness overtake her as she watched her friends curled dreamily upon the soft carpet like the brief flutter of tiny wings in her breast.

Boom.

The sound brought them all to a rude awakening.

"It is close." Thorn whispered. The three women helped Minsc to his feet and they stalked out of His chamber along a short corridor through a low arch, and then they all felt a most curious sensation, sunlight. It danced along their tender skin and satiated their noses with a moist sugar laden fragrance. As they stood dazzled by the sudden rays, and soaking up the affluent perfume Thorn was bewildered to see a lush grove bordering the clearing.

"Can it be real?" She, mused half to herself and half to her companions.

Jahiera sniffed, and her eyes flickered with something primordial.

"No." she hissed. "See the air does not stir as it will in the outdoor places, and the sunlight does not warm my skin."

"Then where are we?" Imoen queried her face ripe, and dazed with enchantment.

"I fear we are still incarcerated in this damndable never-ending hole in the ground. This is sorcery."

Imoen drifted over to a foremost tree in the wood, and lightly caressed its membranous purple leaves, following the veins with her forefinger.

"The trees seem real to me."

Jahiera walked warily to where the pink haired mage stood, and nibbled the end of a frond. She spat.

"They are real, but the rest of this place is a mirage believe me, and come away from there."

Suddenly a face like a pale green bud emerged from between the branches. The two women gave startled cries. Thorn was the first to react. Fearing some new devilry she lunged for the sprite and was rewarded with a fistful of long green hair with which she triumphantly wrenched it from its abode. Imagine their surprise to see, not a fiendish hobgoblin or some other menace, but a beautiful woman. She was very petite with short, slender limbs and adroitly chiseled feminine features, graceful, lithe, feline. Standing before them clad only in her skin, they were awarded a breathtaking glance of her velvet, round navel, full, soft hips and breasts like jade moons, her mint eyes were moons, her hair was grass moons against Thorn's palm. Minsc lowered his crossbow, which a moment ago had been pointed at the smooth, bare batch between the nymph's eyebrows, Jahiera and Imoen lowered their upraised daggers, Thorn released the beauteous creature's lovely tresses, and two more of them stepped from the trees one pallid yellow, the other pastel blue each radiating a cleansing luminosity. They were like fireflies these forest children and they stared with such trusting eyes at the dangerous humans who had assaulted them. It made Thorn feel dirty, their trust, she felt unworthy of it, she would never know why.

"Help me!" The green nymph finally managed to articulate in tones as pure and musical as wind through glass caverns.

"Save us!" Another intoned.

"Free us!"

"What is the matter? Save you from what?"

"From Him!"

A common cringing intelligence passed through Thorn's party as to who _He_ was.

"He keeps us here!"

"We instill emotion, but he is barren. There is nothing we can do."

"I want to go home!"

Phantom tears coursed down Thorn's numb cheeks. Suddenly in her mind's eye she saw Irenicus his cruel hands all over their tender skin. Behind her Minsc was weeping boisterously, Imoen and Jahiera hung their heads, overcome.

"We will do anything we can to help you." Her voice rang with resolve. She knew that she would restore these virtuous prisoners to their home and family, she didn't have a choice, she loved them too much.

"Our mistress lives in the Dryad grove in the southeast region of the Windspear Hills. Take these acorns to her." The green woman extended her hand and gave her three ripe, bronze acorns they made the skin of her palm tingle with magic. "She will be able to summon us from there."

"I will do it."

"Thank you child of Bhaal." They said, and bowed respectfully.

"Real Dryads." Imoen whispered captivated. "I've never seen real dryads before. Such beauty..."

They smiled at her, and the blue one stepped forward and spoke her azure locks twisting about her breasts and neck.

"Our beauty is nothing compared to the splendor of your soul Imoen."

"What do you mean?"

"You have a purity about you lady, do not throw it away. Always keep a small piece of it close to you. For you will find that in the future it is all that will sustain you through episodes of great horror and disease, cruelty, and utter emptiness. The same void that will swallow so many, you will survive, if you keep your gift of innocence, let it be your foothold."

Then the wise fairy kissed her, softly and gently on her mouth. And to Imoen it was as though she had sipped from something cool and nourishing.

Thorn on the other hand felt like she was going to brake. The reality was sinking mercilessly in, that this was just the first cut in a series of wounds.

"Gentle dryads," Her voice was strained with underlying emotion. "I am afraid, I don't know what is going to happen to those I love and to me. I am a daughter of Bhaal. I mean what kind of future does that portend? They say a Bhaalspawn brings murder and chaos to all who comes in contact with her, and at first I didn't want to believe it, I mean how could that be true? I don't want to kill anybody. But then here I am, three years from when I embarked upon my first adventure, and my foster father is dead killed by my brother, who is likewise deceased, and someone else is dead I don't know who, but I have a feeling, a feeling like something dark, and terrible is approaching, closer, and closer, and it is heading straight for me, and I am powerless to stop it. Like somehow, it's...I don't know, my fate, and all I can do is run, but soon I won't be able to run anymore..." She trailed off now completely drained and exposed. "Help me."

The Yellow nymph approached her.

"You should be afraid."

"I should."

"You Daughter of Bhaal indeed sow slaughter and chaos in your wake, but you are not the one who raises the knife. You are the one who provokes intense passion in those that behold you, and as a result of those passions they commit acts that cause the destruction of many. Irenicus is no exception. Beware of him. Be not yielding in your repulsion of him, and do not let down your guard, for he is a most cunning serpent who may take many guises, and pass through even the smallest hole." Thorn felt the comforting lily touch of her fingertips against her cheek. "Go now, and do not despair. To become the slayer is a choice, nothing more. When you are able to realize that, only then will you be free."

And so the dryads bid them farewell, and they left the secluded wood, the four companions feeling a fresh sense of direction, and hope, it would last for a time. All were relieved somewhat of the weight of their personal burdens, all except Jahiera. The druid had had the sensation of a permanent wall of grief encroaching upon the course of her life since she had been captured and separated from her lover Khalid. She missed him to the point of physical pain. Lately she thought her mind was going numb as if in preparation for a terrible blown. It disturbed her to barely suppressed hysteria however she continued to dismiss it as only the atmosphere of the evil place that they now inhabited.

They followed a stone path for a few yards when Imoen stopped.

"Hey guys, another room."

"Check it for traps this time I doubt we'll be so lucky again."

After she had finished she stood at the mouth of the arched doorway with an unrecognizable expression stretched across her tired face.

The cause of her confusion made itself manifest as they entered the chamber. It was like no other room they had come across in the course of their lives. The light there did not come from floating lamps, but ordinary white candles with wax like sweet cream. The light itself was diffuse so that everyone's features were shrouded and the shadows of flames flickered across the walls. The air smelled vacant, stale, unlived in. The furniture was exotic with delicate silver leaf pleated along writing tables and dressers. The bed felt like the breath of clouds under their keen attentions.

"All of this is Elvin make." Jahiera mused, picking up a comb of the most exquisite ivory from where it lay on the vanity. She turned it over in her hands rubbing the pearl surface with her thumb, and regarding it with a look of puzzlement. "And if it hasn't come to anyone else's attention all these items are meant for a woman."

"So beautiful! Why would a monster like that have such lovely things?" Imoen said.

"Because he never uses them." Thorn said her back to her companions. She was looking into one of the numerous mirrors that adorned the wall. In it she saw the face of a woman she did not know. Shade absorbed her features and her eyes shone with a hungry, spectral light usually attributed to cats. She felt the cold vigilance of something sleepless upon her. "These things have never been moved. They remain just the way she left them."

"They way who left them?" Jahiera queried. When Thorn did not respond she drew closer. "Thorn, are you alright?"

The woman in the mirror resembled her, but yet she was not her. Something had changed here.

"I don't know." She finally answered. "Who she was, but he told me..." An

image of the mage flashed behind her eyelids.

"_She has taken everything from me." _

Her breath fled her lungs in a hiss, and she clutched the bed frame for support as the world spiraled around her. Then she felt the sustainment of two large hands on her arms.

"Little Thorn is not feeling well. Boo will make it all better." The hamster squeaked in agreement. The woman looked up into Minsc's soft, comforting face and velvet eyes and smiled in silent thanks. She laid her raven head against his broad shoulder, and he stroked her hair cooing gently.

"Come on we must leave. I have a bad feeling about this place." Said Jahiera.

"Like it's haunted." Imoen added.

They began to step back across the threshold when an alarm sounded ringing like a thousand iron bells in their ears. There was the pounding of large feet and then the menacing figure of a flesh gollum impeded their path.

"No intruders in the Mistress's chamber." It monotonously intoned in a voice like crushed boulders. Thorn struck first. The knife left her hand, flew through the air and imbedded itself to the hilt in the creature's soft belly. It let out a bellow of rage, its gigantic fists crashing down all around them making the ground tremble. Thorn Jahiera, and Minsc wove about, dodging its hands and legs while they stabbed at its abdomen and groin with their swords, and staffs. Imoen stood out of reach firing arrows at its head so that it was forced to deflect them with its arms giving her companions an open target. At last the black blood spouted forth from its stomach, and with one last groan it stumbled and fell, its four assailants scattering just in time to escape being crushed.

They stood panting, adrenaline still coursing through their veins when the resounding pulse of more heavy feet against the ground roused them all from their stupor and they fled back the way they had come hand in hand, through the forest and into the dreaded chamber of the necromancer, the beating steps drawing ever closer.

"Oh God we're trapped!" Imoen cried, "I don't want to die!"

Minsc let out a fantastic war cry, and swung his broad sword his eyes blazing.

"Let them come! Let them face the wrath of Minsc and Boo! We will place the boot of righteousness squarely in evil's backside!"

Thorn who stood beside Jahiera was close to despair herself. Then she laid her hand against the wall and a section of it fell away beneath her touch.

"In here!"

They obeyed. The room was dark and bare except for a dais with a swirling blue vortex at the top. It filled them with one last sliver of hope, they all new what it was for, and simultaneously they leapt into the extraordinary eddy and disappeared just as monsters flooded the abode of Irenicus behind them.

II 

"Where are we?" Imoen inquired shivering in the chilly corridor.

"How the hell should I know?" Jahiera was feeling very tense indeed. "Minsc what in Fearune are you doing?"

The big warrior was currently employed in raiding some dusty crates next to the portal.

"Looking for munchables for Boo! This is hungry work for a space hamster!"

Jahiera rolled her eyes in response. "Thorn what is our next move?"

"I guess to find out what's behind that door."

The object she spoke of appeared ordinary enough, but the lock that secured it appeared rather convoluted.

Suddenly a man clad all in brown leather armor strode casually towards them out of the shadows.

"You don't want to do that my friends." His speech was heavily accented.

Thorn and her companions were immediately ready to attack, and they pointed their bloodied weapons at his dark throat.

"Who are you? I'm in no mood for anymore fun and games." Thorn hissed threateningly.

"Please!" The stranger beseeched them, his face blanched, but managed maintain a cajoling grin. "I mean you know harm. My name is Yoshimo, and I was brought here against my will, like you I should imagine. Please, lower your weapons, I will not bite!"

Slowly they did as he asked, but would not sheath them yet.

"Thank you I was beginning to think that I alone was trapped in this hellhole, but it seems I was mistaken."

"Well then Yoshimo," the word tasted like firecrackers on Thorn's tongue. "We're ready to listen. How and why are you here."

He shook his head. "Regrettably I do not have a clear answer to either of your questions friend. I am part of an organization called the Shadows Thieves in the city of Athkatla perhaps you have heard of it?"

"I'm afraid we have never been to Athkatla so no, but it sounds like a colorful group do continue."

"It is the most powerful thieves guild in all of Fearune and a few days ago, at least I think it has been that long. Time doesn't seem to pass here. In any case, I was on my way to paying my dues to one of the guild leaders in the docks district when I was ambushed from behind. Something hit me in the head and I remember nothing more except waking up here."

"Nothing at all?" Jahiera prodded suspiciously.

"Nothing, I tell you true! I have not seen another living creature since then. I have been wandering around aimlessly for all this time, please have mercy on a lost man and let me join your company!"

Thorn considered him. He was of Asian decent with slick black hair beneath his hood, almond eyes, and swarthy limbs. His smile was of a beguiling sort and so large that it spit his face from nearly ear-to-ear, sometimes she could just make out the very back molars. There was vagueness to him that she just didn't trust.

"I don't know, we're..."

"What if I told you, that that room is infested with bat like creatures that could pick your flesh from your bones in less that a minute."

They looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"Yes that would be something." Said Imoen.

"To defeat them you must kill the white ones. Do I have your trust yet?"

"Keep talking."

"You cannot possibly eradicate them all one by one. If you destroy the white ones the rest will follow."

"All right you're in." Thorn conceded. Imoen sent her a doubtful glance. "But if it turns out that your claims are false, and that you are not what you seem to be, you'll be swiftly disposed of."

"Agreed, but don't worry I am eager to please."

Jahiera sighed exasperatedly and then they proceeded to the door.

"Look through the keyhole." He instructed. Imoen with her sharp eyes did so.

"By Winthrop's stomach they're everywhere!" And indeed they were. They coated every available space, preening their leathery wings and glancing around with beady, fiendish eyes. Four of them were albino.

"I see the white ones." She informed them straightening up, but I think this lock is too complex for me to pick." She pointed to the steel knot of tiny levers and gears. Yoshimo clasped it in his palm.

"Here let me if you please." They watched in silent awe as their newfound companion toyed gently with it his fingers prodding it adroitly almost sensually. It gave with a click underneath his patient attentions. The thief only grinned modestly at their enraptured gazes.

"I told you I was a member of the most powerful thieves guild in Fearune."

Nobody argued otherwise.

"Everyone ready your ranged weapons." Thorn ordered.

Minsc drew out his crossbow and bolts, Jahiera her sling, Imoen and Yoshimo their arrows and poisoned darts, and Thorn the throwing knives that she had confiscated from the weapon room, her heart was thumping hard and fast as her body and mind prepared itself for what was to come. Little did she know.

"Alright, remember _only _the white ones." They threw the door open and dashed in. Their weapons were raised, but the sudden disturbance resulting from their violent entry caused the creatures to rise in a body like a cloud of brown dirt, the white individuals were enveloped in it. Then they were upon them. Wings pounding their faces, gray fangs making tares in their clothing, and stinging their exposed skin. Thorn never felt so frantic as when that wall of brown, grimy fur and teeth surrounded her, blotting out her companions. They were everywhere clinging to her with their talons in clumps, ripping at her hair and biting her scalp; it was like being impaled by a thousand tiny needles. She beat at them with her arms and hands, slashing about wildly with her knife, but more and more appeared to take their places. The air was a whirlwind of writhing bodies. Thorn fell to her knees with a piercing scream. The cutting sensation of fangs embedded through her cloak and into the tissue of her arm provoked her to utilize her remaining wits to raise her knife in defense.

It was a white bat.

The dagger plunged into its lecherous flesh and a score of the dirty demons screeched and fell lifeless around her in a sudden hale of corpses. Their numbers considerably lessoned the cloud was not so dense now that it could hide her friends. She saw Jahiera desperately attempting to shoot the bolts she had so hastily strung. Minsc had given up shooting and was roaring, furiously slashing at them with his sword. Yoshimo was in a similar position, but the sight of Imoen her face pink with fatigue, blood from hundreds of miniscule wounds dripping down her forehead as she strove to fend them off made Thorn go icy with maternal terror and like a lion she snarled and pounced on the grimy swarm. It gave Imoen the time she needed; another white bat revealed itself flickering for moments in and out of the horde she aimed and released the arrow. It went down in a pallid puff of lice ridden fur, fifty more followed. The two siblings fought side by side with their friends and soon all the albinos were slain. It was over.

The party gathered together panting, clinging to each other for support. Then they lay on the ground amongst the vermin their legs refusing to hold them anymore. All of them cried a little. The sisters embraced and would not release each other for long minutes, letting their mutual body heat be a comfort.

"You know," Imoen's quivering whisper reached Thorns ear. "That's the most frightened I've ever been."

"Not for me." She replied.

"That was foolish." Jahiera began. "Such a careless attack, we are lucky that we're not providing a feast for the carrion right now."

"I'm sorry! I had no idea! I've never experienced anything like it before." Thorn defended herself, but then thought better of it. Whether she had known it or not, it had been she who gave the orders and therefore it was she who was responsible. Jahiera looked at her gravely.

"Then let that be a lesson to you."

Thorn hung her head knowing that she was not good enough.

They started to search the room. Crates and boxes were looted, and missile weapons restocked when they were all startled by the horrible sound the druid made. She had begun her examination at the far side of the rather large chamber, and when they turned to stare at her then, she was standing in front of a table with a bulk of something piled on its surface. The sound was a kind of strangled groan that seemed to issue from a sudden grievous impact like the cry of someone who had just been impaled on the end of a spear. It chilled them all, and they ran over to join her. What they saw was truly ghastly.

A carcass lay on the table. It was completely naked, the cloths lay in bloody taters beside it. The body likewise had been incised in a score of places with a number of bloodied instruments that now lay hanging from a rack on the wall. Crimson entrails spilled profusely across the slab staining everything a rusty red. In some places the rib cage jutted out with bits of meat clinging to the edges. Even through the blood they recognized the face. It was Khalid. His lips were parted as though to speak, and his neck was grotesquely elongated, obviously broken. The eyes were still blue, but coated in a milky film. The metallic smell of blood and death lingered in their nostrils.

Thorn could not stand it. She felt her bowls heave skyward, and she regurgitated the remains of her last meal upon the floor. Stomach acid enveloped her tongue, she could not look, she wouldn't look and so buried her searing eyes in her hands. Minsc's face had paled to a sickly shade of yellow his eyes were glassy not unlike the corpse. Yoshimo moaned and turned away. Imoen stared petrified, stunned. This was Khalid, the man Thorn, Imoen, and Minsc had known as a close fried, and Jahiera had known as a husband, now chewed to a bloody pulp and spat upon stone like so much slaughtered meat. It does not matter that he was human, because people who do such things to people do not see them as human.

Jahiera's shoulders quaked.

"No...Khalid?" Her voice was barely audible. "Where are the switches the levers to pull and make it go away? This is a dream! A bad dream! Khalid!" On her knees she clutched one of his waxy hands and kissed it feverously, repeatedly as if it would make him come back.

"My darling, my love, my Khalid, come back, come back! Oh please don't leave me! Don't leave me all alone! You can not leave me here! I love you so much come back! I love you..." Her pleas were terminated by the great, howling sobs that erupted from the very bottom of her soul making her small frame shake brutally. Still she begged him, unable to speak her swollen lips moved wordlessly against him palm. Each cry sent flaming daggers into Thorn's chest and she wept silently, tears hot as urine sliding down her cheeks.

Jahiera was hysterical. Finally Minsc recovered himself enough try to bring her away from the heinous sight, but she clutched her husband's hand in a death grip. In the end it took both Minsc and Yoshimo to pry her off. That being done she fainted. Minsc took her into his arms and they moved away from the gruesome platform, except for Thorn. She stood motionless looking into her friend's misty eyes.

_"Promise me."_ He had said. _"Promise me you'll look after Jahiera."_

"I promise." She whispered.

Jahiera lay with her head cradled in Imoens lap, blissfully unconscious. The young mage's tears fell upon her face and she rocked back and forth and tore at her hair with her hands.

"Oh God!" She wailed. "God help me I can't, I can't, I can't!"

When Jahiera awoke she did not seem to know who they were. Her great brown eyes rolled crazily into her skull.

"It wasn't a dream was it?"

Thorn shook her head no.

"My husband is dead?"

"Yes."

"Oh Khalid, this world was never made for one as beautiful as you." And she fell into silence. Eventually Minsc spoke up tentatively.

"Minsc and Boo just wish to say how sorry they are."

The druid's eyes took on a deadly hue.

"Crazy fool! You and your idiotic vermin! You do not know of what you speak!"

Yoshimo pressed forward. "I just want to give my condolences..."

"Stranger! You cannot know."

"Jahiera, if it makes you feel any better, he was dead before Irenicus did that to him." Imoen ventured.

"I don't want to know!"

"He never felt anything."

"I said I don't want to hear about it!" She staggered to her feet, inflamed visage set. That was one of the remarkable things about Jahiera, her ability to put even the most intense feelings aside and take action.

"Come! No more of this weeping! We have to avenge him, and we won't do it by sitting around here."

"Stay a moment!" Thorn interceded, "There is a room off to the left of this one, Imoen and I will investigate while you rest with Minsc and Yoshimo. Better strong and slow then weak and hasty."

The bhaalspawn grasped Imoen's arm pulling her to her feet, and they made off in the direction of the door.

Imoen's face was haggard and gaunt from strain, as was Thorn's, they clasped hands as they walked.

"I was there when He did that to Khalid ya' know?" Her sister's voice quavered as she attempted to restrain the tears from spilling afresh. "He showed me. He's mad. He'd cut and say, 'Don't you see? Don't you see?"

"Hush, don't speak about it now."

"He also kept saying something about potential."

The new chamber had tanks akin to the ones they had witnessed earlier in the room of the pickled men only the inhabitants of these tanks were not pickled, and seemingly dead. In each one was a woman, the same woman. She was quite beautiful with long flaxen tresses, delicate Elvin features, and quiet, meditative green eyes. Thorn thought back to the lady she had seen in the water, and then partially again in the deserted bedroom.

"They're clones." Said Imoen, "He is obsessed with this woman, he talks to her sometimes, even though she isn't there."

"He told me that someone had destroyed him." Said Thorn.

The smash of glass made them start. One of the clones was still alive, and was beating her enclosure with her fists. It shattered, and yellow fluid flooded the floor, sloshing warm around their ankles. She lurched from the jagged ruins, her body lacerated and bleeding from contact with shards of glass. Then she tottered falling forward into Thorn's outstretched arms. The child of Bhaal clutched the lady's limp, soaked body to her breast while Imoen looked on in amazement.

"I am free." Her torrid breath scorched Thorn's ear. "I would not die in there. Soon I will be beyond His reach, he cannot touch me anymore. He will not miss me. Beware, it is you, it is you." She died. Thorn would forever feel her fading heart beat dancing feebly against her chest.

They laid the tortured soul on her back crossing her arms upon her bosom. Imoen closed her eyelids with her fingers.

"Poor woman, may they never find you."

They returned to the others in silence, and did not speak of what they saw. When asked, they never told, they could not.

After walking for some time the band noticed that the air was growing thinner. It passed fluidly through their lungs and was no longer stale. Also the discord of battle now seemed to be right above their heads.

"Look Boo we're almost there!" Minsc shouted enthusiastically.

They walked faster, they jogged, they ran, they flew. They were so close.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Went the battle.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Went their hearts.

The tunnel swept by in a blur of color and contours. The ground rose, they were bursting with excitement. A ray of sunlight, another, and then they were out, into the blinding light, and cool animation of air in that other world known as the surface.

They drunk great mouthfuls of fresh breeze like mint on their tongues.

Boom.

There He was.

Boom.

Thorn's heart ruptured.

Irenicus was fending off a legion of mages. His hands moved with the grace and rapidity of birds in flight, then a spell would spew from his fingers and consume an adversary in a belch of shimmering dust. His gaze was fixed and so he did not see them at first.

"I cannot be caged!" He hissed, sending an icy serpent of fear along her spinal cord.

"This mage's power is immense!" One of the combatants in front of them cried as he desperately tried to erect magical barriers that would save his life.

The Necromancer expelled a hex in his direction. It incinerated him then continued to soar precisely in their direction. Yoshimo ducked just in time as it struck the entry way behind him, a shower of sparks imbedding themselves in his hair.

Irenicus's gaze followed its flight, and then he saw them, or rather her. Their eyes met, and he suddenly grew very pale, his bottom lip quivered minutely. Thorn thought she would burn up under his gaze.

"What are you doing here?" He gasped.

She did not answer her tongue was paralyzed, but Imoen stepped forward.

"Stay away from her you evil bastard, she's not your prisoner anymore!" She spat and in a murderous impulse chanted the incantations of the magic missile spell. The lurid, deadly projectiles spun out and struck the mage in the abdomen. He grunted in pain and his visage flashed darkly.

"I am tired of playing games with ignorant children!"

Suddenly a fresh ring of mages teleported onto the scene. One of them addressed Irenicus. There was a quiver in his voice that he was clearly trying to master.

"You will..." he stammered. "Cease your spell casting and come with us!"

Everyone held their breath, they all expected him to strike out again, but he shocked them all when a infinitesimal smile crept onto his lips.

"Very well, but you will take the girl with you as well."

To Thorn's and her companions' mortification he indicated Imoen with the direction of his finger. The young thief, mage's face drained to a deathly white.

"No...please! I didn't do anything!"

Two of the cloaked wizards seized her by the arms.

Thorn lunged, but was restrained by Yoshimo. She struggled in his grasp, but his hands were like iron clasps.

"Don't be a fool you'll get us all killed if you interfere!"

"You have been a participant in a magical disruption," One of the sorcerers was saying. "And must come with us!"

Irenicus wrapped a muscled arm about Imoen's waist clutching her to him possessively, his eyes glinting with something that resembled pleasure over the agony it caused his adversaries, most especially Thorn, who felt so sick with terror that she thought she might faint at any second. There was a brief conference between the mages, and then the necromancer and her sister were being hurried down the street. Just before they disappeared in a bend in the road, Irenicus turned his head, and looked her in the eye he was smiling.

Thorn's mouth dropped open in a silent scream.

"Gone!"

Boom.

**Offshoreecho:** _Thank you kindly. I'm sorry, but I am going to try very hard to make you cry, or scream with rage, or be completely silent or whatever feelings a story like this will ultimately evoke in you. No more hints as to what I was alluding to, don't tempt me! I am about half way through your story, and I will review it, but I want to finish it first, and lately I haven't had the time, but don't worry I will. Above everything else you deserve it. You've been so nice and encouraging in your reviews to me, not only that, but you review so fast! And then you have to wait such a long time for more, and I thank you again for your patience and all the rest. I agree that personal responses to the reviewers are much more...well personal, and I like to do it that way. Keep reviewing, and keep writing your story! _

**sammie teufel: **_Thank you! I am trying to get Irenicus's character right so I'm happy you feel that way. Also I appreciate the spelling corrections if I don't always follow them it's not because I don't believe you, it's just that sometimes I spell them that way automatically and then don't notice when I edit. Hmm... I'm not sure if you know exactly where this whole 'Doomed Romance' thing is going. You could know, but I have my doubts...anyway thanks again for the support with the whole school thing, I'm hanging in there, keep the reviews coming!_

**celestine 1: **_Many thanks! I'm glad you're still with me, I am grateful for your patience. I hope I'll feel better too, thank you for saying so, it helps. I hope to keep hearing from you. P.S. Khalid not Khalide, got it!_

**Ethearia: **_Thank you so much! I mean it, seriously THANK YOU, that was a really great review, it has helped to keep me going. You had the same idea? Then by all means write it if you wish! But I understand as well that the millions of details in Baldur's Gate may seem kind of daunting, I can't even fit a quarter of them all in or I'd never finish. Look it's true, I admit it, I never hated Anomen, no I wasn't even annoyed by him. This story is not going to be one devoted to pointless Anomen bashing so don't worry. He will be just as human as all the other characters with his strengths and his flaws. Thank you, and do keep reviewing they are every so enjoyable to read lol. _


	7. And the Animal Awakens

_Few! It took me hours and hours to complete this. **READ THIS **if you don't want to be confused. The character named Fraggot in this chapter is really that slimy owner of the Copper Coronet whose name I can't remember. If anyone knows it please inform me. Also what was the name of the guy who led the slave revolt? Hendrick something I think. He had a German accent which is weird because there are no Germans in Baldur's Gate. No Germany for that matter. Read and enjoy._

**Chapter 7: And the Animal Awakens**

He could not believe he had done it. He was losing control or maybe he had regained it. When the battle despoiling in his catacombs shifted to the intruders favor he was driven out step by step to the surface. Once there he continued to fight, however the instant he chanted a hex he was bombarded by a legion of Cowled. They were easily disposed of yet remarkably there appeared to be an inexhaustible supply as more and more kept rising up to take the fallens' places. They asked him repeatedly to surrender, but by that point he was intoxicated with a blinding rage. Rage at being challenged, at being interfered with, the kind that burns the edges of your sight red and drives men to tear at other men with their teeth like animals. Thus despite the knowledge that he would eventually be overwhelmed his poison temper threw all cares of self-preservation to the wind and he burnt and slashed and would surely have died in the end and all would have been saved.

Then She came.

She emerged from the ground as a worm or vole would, but vermin she was not. He saw her aggrieved face that would put the whitest star to shame. Her eyes black, and secretive, hair tangled dirty drapes of ebony velvet. His gaze followed the sway of her lissome form, and immediately he felt the stab of deep hunger pangs, and the unsettling of something restless, and insatiable in his breast. Quite unexpected the sister penetrated the boundaries of his vision and attacked. Had she spoken to him? He had not heard, he saw only Her. The explosions of pain that her assault produced roused him from his trance. Then he realized that he was afraid, he knew that at any moment something might slip and he would lose Her forever. The Cowled Wizards were closing in; his mind was in turmoil. The opening came. They implored him to surrender, and this time he assented, but to everyone's shock including his own he heard himself ask for the sister Imoen as well. Why had he done it? He did not want her, he wanted Thorn, God how he wanted her. If he had asked for Thorn instead she would have been made to accompany him by force, and then she would hate him forever. He knew that he would rather die then have that, so his frenzied brain had asked for the person closest to her. Make Her come to Him. Make Her seek Him out, it was that simple, and she would do it. Of that he had no doubt.

As they were carted through the busy streets of Athkatla Irenicus realized that he had with him the only remained link to Thorn, and he clung to it like a drowning man, clutching her wrist refusing to let his grip go lax for even a moment. His humor dipped and rolled with the roads. At one moment he would become giddy with triumph and in his eagerness he would jerk his prize along in tow so that she stumbled to keep up. Then he would become grave at how close he had come to losing the half Goddess forever, and as a result walk at a slower pace frequently toying with strands of the sister's fine, pink hair, closing his hand over the back of her neck as if to assure himself that she was really there.

Their long march was terminated in the government district and they entered the government building amidst a swarm of interested faces. Once the huge iron doors had closed behind them he released Imoen's wrist to her great relief, confident that she would not be able to flee. The government building was more like a cavern then an edifice in that it possessed a sheer excess of space. The roof rose for what seemed like miles above their heads and a clear breeze pricked their skin as in the outdoor places. Overall it was a beautiful structure. The ceiling was covered in a vast fresco illustrating the birth of Lira the goddess of Justice. In the scene she is depicted rising from the womb of Wisdom her mother. For their will be no justice in ignorance. She is naked, already a mature woman her hair silver, gray and flowing about her monochrome shoulders as she stretches her new body towards the sun in a gesture of deference. The walls of the government building were constructed of white marble as was the floor and it shone and slipped like ice beneath their clattering feet reverberating throughout the huge hall. As they walked, they passed the limestone statues of many a grave, bearded scholar long dead their naked pupiless eyes watching them with frigid interest. Irenicus felt Imoen begin to shake; he let the hand he had placed on the back of her neck stray to her left shoulder blade.

They stopped in front of a large doorway with a prayer to Lira etched in silver runes in the wood. A sheepish looking young Cowled wizard turned to them.

"You are going to be secured now. If the gentleman would please disengage himself from the lady."

Irenicus did as he was told without argument. He knew that they were about to be put on trial for their crimes. Imoen on the other hand looked dazed and frightened, glancing from face to face imploringly, helplessly.

The mages took Imoen's dagger and bow and arrows. Upon searching Irenicus they found nothing. They then cast spheres of isolation upon their prisoners. These magic orbs would give the user complete invulnerability, but simultaneously leave them helpless to perform any acts of hostility themselves. Irenicus closed his eyes and breathed deeply from the aroma of magic as the shimmering globe encompassed him. It was like the smell of static, the emptiness between two images; it was the stuff both he and it were composed of.

Inside, the judge, the lesser judges, and the clerk all sat assembled very neatly in their fur cloaks. The presiding judge was old and bald beneath his hood. He slouched upon a marble throne, and looked at them fixedly from beneath his eyelids.

One of their captors stepped forward. Neither Irenicus nor Imoen could distinguish which one it was as they all looked pretty much identical.

"These are the ones who caused the disturbance at Waukeen's Promenade."

The clerk was busy scribbling down everything that was said with a red quill.

"Yes I know. It took you damn long enough to catch them." The judge's voice had an eerie echo to it as if it issued from something hollow. "Why, a dozen of our people must have been killed, at least!"

"This mage has tremendous power. It might have taken two dozen more to secure him if he had not surrendered voluntarily!"

The judge's upper lip curled in a mock grin.

"What a waste."

"What should be done with them my Lord?"

At that point the blood rushed to the old man's withered face and his fingers twitched where they rested on the chair arms with almost imperceptible pleasure.

"They are deviants. Let them rot in Spellhold."

"Wait!" Imoen violently interceded. "What kind of justice is this? Don't I get a chance to defend myself? Am I to be condemned without a trial? I am innocent!"

"Peace!" The judge's face had ripened to an unhealthy red. "My judgment is final! Now I will have no more interruptions or you shall be punished in the severest manner girl!"

To everyone's shock she threw herself on her knees before his feet. Her face had blanched, and her eyes were flickering like delirious moons.

"Please! I didn't do anything! It was him!" She pointed at the imposing figure of Irenicus who watched her desperate outburst with disinterested observation. "Please, please! I have done nothing, have mercy..."

"Imoen."

His voice stopped her dead as though it had severed her vocal cords. Her lips continued to move soundlessly.

"Keep quiet and let the fools make their judgment."

Her head dropped into her hands and she wept bitterly where she knelt.

"Why didn't you tell me that this girl hadn't confessed?" the Judge queried.

"We assumed that the facts were incontestable."

"I never proceed with sentencing without a full confession. Put her to the torture then. I'd like to get through with this before dinner."

"Yes my Lord."

At the word torture Imoen's tear dampened faced slowly emerged from her palms. Her eyes were huge and she was trembling powerfully. The young Cowled Wizard grasped her arm and pulled her reeling to her feet where her limbs, barely able to support her weight, buckled like dead wood.

Irenicus burned inwardly at the mage's intimate contact with what belonged to him and him alone.

"Let her go." His voice was a knife.

The assemblage stared at him with the muted dread his presence always instilled. A dread, and a fear, not one that comes of physical risk, but rather of deformity. The young wizard obeyed drawing his hands away as if she burned him.

"No torture will be necessary gentleman." He continued. "Whatever I say applies to her as well."

The judge flinched. "Yes, yes he's quite right. No torture, no torture." He stuttered. "Send them there by boat immediately, but first send a messenger to contact the curator so that he knows what he'll be dealing with in advance.

Suddenly one of the lesser judges in a floor length green robe stood and addressed the old sorcerer.

"Pardon me my Lord, but it is imperative that I have a word in private with this man answering to Irenicus."

"In private?" The old man arched a skeptical eyebrow in the speaker's direction.

"If you please my Lord."

"It is your risk to take. Very well, you may have it in here. Guards ah...position yourselves outside the door here with the girl. You have five minutes."

These orders were carried out, as the wizards left the room Imoen's voice could still be vaguely heard floating nightmare like against their ears.

"I want to go home. I want my sister." She suppurated, and then they shut the doors.

There was a pause. Irenicus had already sunk into the slippery depths of his tortured mind, and took no notice of the curious man who stood before him.

"So you are Irenicus." The stranger said at last, but the necromancer did not respond, he only stood eyes fixed on someone who wasn't there in the room.

"_Jon _Irenicus?"

The sudden utilization of his name and the painful memories it revived was like the plunging of a dagger between his shoulder blades. If it were not for the restraint imposed upon him by the orb of isolation he would have killed the unfortunate person. However the only physical reaction it provoked was the flash of his pupils as they snapped upon his mysterious companion.

"How do you know my name?"

He pulled off his fur hood to reveal the delicate features and sharp ears of an elf.

"Forgive me for not making it apparent to begin with, but I did not want a connection to be perceived between us. My name is Tivary Kin."

"I do not know what connection you are referring to." Irenicus said. "If it is that both you and I are Elvin, you are mistaken. I have disposed of many of my kind without a single thought to such niceties as _connection_." He uttered the last word disdainfully, as if the taste was offensive to his tongue.

"I was part of The Resistance."

Irenicus twitched minutely.

"_The _Resistance?"

"The very same. You may not have seen me because I was only a common soldier in our growing force, but I remember seeing you quite often. Our leader Jon Irenicus." He sighed incredulously.

"If you use that name one more time or I shall be very angry."

"Forgive me my Lord. Tell me, where have you been all these years? We thought you were dead."

"Dead. I was dead." He inhaled sharply as he felt the memory of a kiss imprint itself coldly upon his lips. After a moment he recovered, attributing the sensation to fatigue. "And while we are on the subject." He continued conversationally. "How did you manage your own survival Kin? Surely you did not spend all this time in the other world."

"I didn't." Kin answered rather proudly. "When the soldiers were ordered to execute all of the rebels they began to organize the lot of us into a line. During those first few moments of disorder I climbed into one of the stinking maws in the trunk of the tree that your magic had produced. I hid there through the entire ordeal. The smell was most dreadful, like, boiling fat. I departed at dark when they wouldn't recognize me. Then I left Sundenessilar and migrated all the way to Athkatla where I found work as a Cowled Wizard. It has been a change. Now look my Lord..." Tivary Kin's voice was suddenly an intimate whisper. He lent his narrow face close to Irenicus so as not to be overheard. "We haven't got much time, and so I would like to offer you my services. Old loyalties never die, and I never ceased wanted revenge upon the Elvin queen and her counterparts. Now, name your desire, whatever you want I will do my best to grant it.

A wave of raven hair flashed behind the necromancer's eyelids.

"Anything I want?"

"Anything within my power Sir."

"Then let me begin with this. I shall need to know the name of the Warden at this Spellhold, and his class."

"Well I can tell you that straight off. His name is Lumis Hacker. Bloody Hacker to those who've known his sadistic side, and he's a Cowled Wizard just like me and my counterparts."

"And what can you tell me of this asylum to which I'm to be sent?"

"It's located on Black Isle, hence the boat. It's supposedly a place for mentally ill mages, wizards, and sorcerers to be confined so as not to be a danger to themselves or others mind you, but almost anyone who has ever cast a magic missile is apt to go there. The fear of being locked away keeps the people in line. A clever ploy of the large corporations I suspect. I don't know anything else really of what goes on inside, but the rumors are gruesome."

"What rumors?"

"Limbs being cut off, magical experiments being performed on live subjects, the stuff of nightmares."

Irenicus smiled to himself as he remembered his own practice of doing just those things.

Suddenly the sound of the door being unlocked alerted their ears.

"That's them." Tivary Kin warned. "We must stop talking now."

"And there is something else." Irenicus held him with his eyes.

"And?"

"And. And I want you to have a certain Bhaalspawn followed her name is Thorn."

"You mean _she's _the one?"

"Yes and the one I've brought with me is her sister. Follow her. I want to know everything. What she eats, where she goes, if she sleeps, and with whom."

"But to what purpose."

"For my life."

They came in.

"Time's up, escort them to the boats!"

Irenicus stepped beside the tottering Imoen his heart like a fistful of hot coals, and in know time they were being hustled onto a rickety gangway amidst the bluster of the salty sea air.

"Gone!"

Thorn, Jahiera, Minsc, and Yoshimo stood paralyzed in the smoking wreckage of the recent battle staring at the place where their companion had disappeared. It was then that Thorn felt the earth separate beneath her feet.

"This was not supposed to happen." Jahiera whispered feverishly. "None of this was supposed to happen!"

"But it did." Yoshimo firmly interjected.

"Little Imoen why are you gone?" Minsc held his trembling hamster up to his clenched lips.

Their voices swirled in a pool of agony over Thorn's head.

"Not supposed to happen."

"Little Imoen."

"He'll kill her."

"Dead."

"Oh my God!" Thorn screamed her body doubling over in Yoshimo's embrace. "Oh my God, no! Damn him, I want Imoen, I want Imoen!" Her voice broke in a frenzy of sobs when suddenly she felt her hair seized, and her face pulled skyward to meet Jahiera's irate gaze, then a hand struck her full in the face.

"Enough! Don't you dare break do you hear?!" Don't you_ dare_!"

Thorn stunned, her cheek stinging like venom. Slowly she felt the reason returning to her faculties. She straightened up as Yoshimo released her.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Just don't break on me child. You're the only rock I've got left in my life." Jahiera sighed wearily.

With superhuman effort Thorn managed to smother the burning image of her sister and that man somewhere in the dark places of her mind where we store all permanency of our pain when we just can't deal with it anymore.

Upon surveying her surrounding she discovered that they were encircled by edgy spectators assessing the damage and waiting apprehensively for the fighting to renew itself.

"Yoshimo." She addressed the tattered thief hoarsely. "Just where are we?"

"This is Waukeen's Promenard a district of Athkatla. A very charming place if you wish to shop!"

"Never mind that just point the way to the nearest tavern. I think I am not being too presumptuous when I say that we are all dead tired and in need of a drink."

"And a bath!" Minsc added.

"I am always glad to be of service, please if you will all kindly follow me." With that Yoshimo took the lead through the flamboyant show that was Waukeen's Prominard. The eccentric little shops, bustling department stores, exotic circus animals, lurid circus tents, shouting venders, the syrupy smoke of meat cooking, the gutter water splashing about their ankles in the dips in the rode, dust, dirt, sweat, all relentlessly passed through their somnambulistic minds to clot in blue pockets at the boundaries of their brains.

Gradually the crowd thinned and the people they did see looked poorer and stared at them with a hungry glint in their eyes. The buildings too changed. They looked rickety the roofs slanted with age and decay. Rats and trash littered the pock marked ground where they stepped and the air smelt like gasoline. At about that point Yoshimo genially informed them that they had entered the slums district.

"I have done much good business here. A little shabby perhaps, but I know of a decent inn that would not put too hard a strain on our meager budget."

Thorn was just about to state that she would rather sleep in the gutter when she was startled to nearly run full into a man leaning against an alley way and studying her coolly from beneath a tarnished leather cap.

"Ello'." He tugged the said cap further down his brow, a habit, which they would all soon come to identify him by. My name be Gaelvin Bale you wouldn't appen' to be Thorn would you?"

"Watch it." Yoshimo hissed between gritted teeth nudging her in the side to add emphasis to his admonition.

"I'm sorry but you're wrong good sir. I am not she."

"Funny," He cocked his head like an inquisitive bird. "I be thinkin' me sources infalable. Then I don't suppose you want ta' ear' bout' the lass Imoen eh?"

The Bhaalspawn immediately felt her innards jerk as if he had physically grabbed her.

"What do you know of my sister?"

"I thought' as much. I'd like to discuss it with you, but better we should go some place quiet and private like. Ere' I'll escort you to me umble' abode."

"And how do we know you're not planning to ambush us?" Jahiera interceded vehemently.

"You'll jus' ave' ta' tyke' me word for it. Coo! Come with me then!"

"This is foolish Thorn, it's a trap." Said Jahiera, but the child of Bhaal cared nothing about her personal safety if it meant news of her sister.

The house was two stories, immaculate, and smelt sweetly of burning rose petals. A fire crackled in the hearth satiating the room with a cheery golden glow.

"Boo says this doesn't look so bad." The warrior remarked in a loud whisper to the druid. "What do you think now suspicious woman?"

"Sit down please." Their charming host gracefully gestured to the seductively soft arm chairs around the fire. They assented burrowing into the caverns of supportive fabric, and breathing in that same rose scent that now seemed to be emanating from the greedy flames. They all sat except Minsc, whose awkward oversized body would not fit into any seat comfortably save for the floor. There he curled up like a big kitten stroking and cooing Boo, ruddy cheeks gleaming in the firelight.

"Something to drink?" Gaelvin Bale said as a maid pushed out a rolling table covered in glasses and a silver decanter brimming with some kind of alcoholic beverage." The goblet's reflected the glow of the blaze casting slices of gold across the man's visage like fissures in his flesh through which an inner radiance leaked its rays.

The party gratefully accepted his generous offer and soon they were sipping sleepily from rich purple wine.

Their host placed himself in front of the fire and began to stir the coals with the fire iron.

"Now I have invited you ladies and gentlemen ere' for a business proposition, I know all about your lass an' the necromancer an' the mages that is keeping er' ostige' for that matter."

"Who are they?" Thorn queried keenly.

"They be the Cowled Wizards an' they are one of the two great powers ere' in Athkatla, ain't nobody crosses em' without gettin' their life kilt'. You're gonna need elp' and that's were I come in."

"We shall be the judge as to whether you come in at all!" The druid asserted her eyes purple and drooping with drink. Thorn remained unspoken, digging her nails into the arm rests.

"Tyke it easy now lassy." Gaelvin Bale countered, jabbing the logs hard enough to create an eruption of sparks. "I ain't crooked I tell you true or me name isan't Gaelvin Bale. As' I was saying ya' cynt' do it alone. If you want your lass back and whatever else that mad man took from you you'll need elp' an' I have an offer."

"Speak up good man." Yoshimo encouraged him merrily, and Thorn couldn't help noticing with some wonder at how nothing however tragic seemed to have any effect on the theif's good humor. She looked him hard in the eyes, and he noticing her attention, stared back at her and winked then returned to watching their host.

"A powerful organization is prepared to offer its services to you for a sum of twenty-thousand in gold coins."

Minsc choked on his wine.

"I beg your pardon?" Thorn inquired her eyes bulging.

"Twenty-thousand in gold. Look ye' ere' I know it be a lot o' money, but it's a big risk for these people to tyke, and they're the only way you'll see your lass again."

Jahiera spoke up her eyes blazing like twin sparks. "You're right it's a lot of money you cheating imbecile! Nobody has that kind of wealth save for the slave traders and the pimps! And even if we did have it, why would you suppose we would give it to people of whom we know nothing? Not even their name?"

"I cynt' tell ye' the nyme' for fear that news of their offer might leak out an' be over eard' by bad ears, but lyke' I said. You don't be avin' a choice if you want to see your lass and that maniac again."

"I don't want to." Thorn shivered despite the heat.

They looked at her questioningly.

"I don't want to see _Him_ again. Oh, but I must rescue Imoen. I'll do anything I can sir, but how do you propose we earn such a gargantuan sum?"

He shrugged and lit a cigar in the fire place. After taking a deep drag of it he spoke the smoke flowing out of his nostrils and mouth.

"Anywye' ye' likes. It matters little to me or them jus' so long as the stuff's real."

Jahiera began to mutter bitterly beneath her breath.

"If ye' would like to look for work The Copper Coronet usually is bein' a good place."

"That is where I intended to take them." Said Yoshimo.

"My nephew will guide ye' there jus' to make certain ye' don't get off track an' if you ain't be needin' anything else I bes' be getting back to my business.

Thorn stood prompting them all to follow her example. With the potency of the wine coursing through her body tissues she felt strangely expectant, on edge as if she stood on a precipice waiting for a hand to push her down into the air.

"Thank you I think that will be all for now. Good night."

"Good night ladies an' gents. I'll be right ere' when you ave' the money."

And thus they were turned out, left to stand in the sticky city evening breeze, with the delirious sensation that the last half hour of their lives had never occurred.

The nephew met them outside, and led them to the rowdy gin hole known as The Copper Coronet then he departed. Thorn listened anxiously to the peels of raucous laughter issuing from the torrid interior.

"I don't know about this."

Yoshimo surveyed the premises confidently. "Do not worry my fair friend. I know the first impression is rather unsettling, but the prices are good and so is the entertainment I might add." He chuckled, a bubbling sound like small combustions that made his entire face crinkle like a dinner napkin. It also revealed two full rows of sparkling white teeth in striking contrast to his earthy skin; they reminded Thorn of clattering ice cubes. She stepped passed him feeling inexplicably shaken.

The inside was just as she had expected. Groups of roughly dressed, gray faced adventuring men, who laughed too loud, and drank to much strong brown ale. They were currently located in the main room a long low space filled entirely with so much pipe and cigar smoke that it took a minute for their eyes to stop tearing and their lungs to cease protesting before they could do anything.

"Well," Thorn began. "Who wants to order the rooms?"

"I'll do that." The thief cut in. "I rather know the main barkeep, and maybe he could give us a deal. His name's Bartleby and he's a fine sort."

"Did you say Bartleby?" Jahiera queried leaning toward him keenly.

"I did."

"Well, I wonder if it's the same one. I know a Bartleby he's a friend of mine and a friend to the Harpers. I think I'll come along with you, and satisfy my curiosity. Maybe we'll get a bargain on equipment as well.

"Minsc?"

"Minsc and Boo will go with Jahiera and Yoshimo in case any righteous butt kicking is needed!"

"Thank you for your protection my big friend." The thief patted the giant warrior's towering shoulder.

"Minsc and Boo are always willing to help!"

"What about you child?" said Jahiera.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I'll just explore a little while."

"Alright," The druid reluctantly assented. "But be careful, and don't go brooding over Imoen and making yourself miserable."

"Ok."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise."

"Don't worry we'll get her back. I'll carry the misery for both of us. Just relax for now. You know where to find us."

"Yes."

Thorn's three companions began to wade through the smoke and sinister groups of ruffians to the main desk at the far end of the room leaving her to herself. Suddenly she felt that wall of sadness that was constantly trying to crush her loom upon the borders of her mind.

"No." she bit her lip. "I will not think of Imoen right now. I will not. I'm going to..." She spotted some stairs leading up to a door. "See what's in there."

When she reached the entrance she found her way blocked by an armed guard.

"Sorry miss, but nobody gets in here cept' those with permission."

"How do I get permission then?"

"Talk with ol' Fraggot. He's the manager of this here inn."

"And where might I find him."

"He's engaged inside at the moment." The guard indicated the door behind him with a bawdy grin.

Thorn stared at the unattainable entry, exasperated.

"Well then obviously that doesn't help me much as I can't go in."

"Maybe you could." He took a step toward her. "But it would take a favor."

Thorn felt her skin wriggle as one of his hands crept around onto her ass.

"I'd love to, but I really haven't got the time." She grabbed his questing wrist with one hand, and then pulled a handkerchief that she had previously dabbed with sleeping potion from the bosom of her shirt and pressed it to his mouth and nose, the latter being now uncomfortably close to her face. The man's eyes closed and his heavy body slumped limply into her arms. Staggering to keep her balance she managed to hook him under the armpits and gently lower him to the ground propping him neatly against the wall.

"Some other time perhaps." The Bhaalspawn stepped proudly through the former barrier unhindered.

The light was dim and bright in patches so that the whole corridor resembled a heatstroke dream. Beads of sweat began to pool in the crook of her armpits and the aroma of so much cheap perfume in such a confined space was stifling, but she was drawn by an insatiable curiosity.

Many individual rooms lined both walls. Occasionally a door would open and a woman usually with only a thong on or sometimes not even that would stand there watching her pass with dull eyes that hinted at only the barest semblances of curiosity. Thorn's heart tied itself into knots to see that some of them appeared to be only ten or twelve. Just standing there in their vulnerable nakedness, ribs poking grotesquely through their sides like warped piano keys, all the life, that connection which is always visibly flashing behind a sentient, intelligent being's eyes was lost in them, and they stared after her like so many broken dolls who have forgotten how to respond.

This was the most profitable corner of the slave market.

Prostitution.

Thorn could not look at them, but even with her gaze averted to her feet she could feel their departed minds studying her and their stares brushing timidly, maybe even hopefully across her skin. At the end of the hall was a little room piled high with colorful silk pillows. Several men stood around smoking or fondling naked girls and women, but then she saw one sprawled in the center of the glossy womb. He was taking slow indifferent sips from a goblet of something while several girls massaged his, back, legs, and various other parts of his anatomy their eyes wide with adoration. As Thorn stepped closer a nude woman tapped him on the head. Thorn's drew breath to see a hideous scar adorning the left side of her face. It was pink, the flesh crude and uneven as if the skin had never grown together properly. Crimson tendrils and shattered nerves branched off of it in all directions like some parasitic octopus. She handed the man a few coins.

"Is this all you got for me today Bunny?" The man said. His voice croaked, and he gagged interminably from the globs of flem that inflicted his gullet. The sound made her want to clear her own throat.

The whore shook her head yes.

"Very well, but if you do so poorly again I'll turn you out into the street you worthless trash!"

Thorn mashed her teeth and felt her chest cavity crumble as the poor woman fell to her knees and began to kiss his bejeweled hand frantically.

"Don't worry baby I was only foolin' you know I love you. Off with you now go get some rest like a good girl." He slapped her butt like one would a mule. "Out I said!"

She took off down the opposite hall.

Suddenly he noticed Thorn's rigid form in front of him.

"Well looky here. You must be one of the new girls. Strip down and we'll see if you're good for anything.

"I'm not one of the new girls." Her voice was quivering with a murderous undercurrent. She wanted to tear her nails down his greasy, pale face, and then strangle him with his own gaudy necklaces.

"Well then who are you? What do you want? How in hell did you get past the guards..."

"Are you Fraggot?"

"Supposin' I am what's it to you." He glowered at her and ran a hand through his long, oily, black hair.

"I just wanted to see what kind of a place you ran."

"Well I hope it's been enlightening for you."

There was a pause in which Thorn struggled to master her intense revulsion, and the pimp appeared to forget her.

"I don't suppose you have any male prostitutes here do you?"

"Sorry baby, but I've been known to volunteer if you pay extra." He flashed her a yellow, sardonic smirk.

"I'd sooner bed with an orc."

The smirk faded. He stood up quite suddenly, disrupting his massage and staggered toward her his yellow eyes narrowed and threatening. Thorn held her ground almost trembling now with the desire to leap at his throat.

"You don't have permission to be back here sweetheart. This ain't no place for little girls like you. Now scram."

It would be foolish to attack on her own with her opponent surrounded by so many of his allies, and she knew it.

Abruptly, she felt another person at her back; she spun around to find Yoshimo's swarthy countenance rearing out of the diffuse light like some kind of hovering planet. He addressed the pimp.

"I apologize Fraggot she did not know."

"You ought to keep a tighter leash on the wench. She might get hurt someday."

"It is not within my power to do so. Give my regards to your ladies and let them know I shall be calling upon them to night.

"A pleasure sir." He gurgled.

Warm tears accumulated in the back of Thorn's sockets as she was forced to leave all these caged women and girls behind, unable to save them for the present.

"I'll come again Fraggot." She shouted back.

"Oh do." He said as he settled back into the pillows, his layers of jewelry jangling like lewd bells. "Maybe you'll change your mind about my offer next time."

Yoshimo was leading her by the arm.

"You should not be here."

"But I hear that you'll be coming tonight."

"Yes, but I am a man. Besides I don't come just to look around, I come as a paying costumer who wishes to use the facilities." He chuckled again, the sound inflamed Thorn's rancor. She jerked her arm free and faced him.

"Now you listen to me. Don't you _dare_ tell me what to do again. You have to _earn_ that privilege. I'm the leader of this group not one of these poor wretches that you can command, what I say goes or you're out. And let me tell you, I will not tolerate any person sick enough to take advantage of a slave trade. You go there tonight or any other night, and you'll be expelled from the party."

Yoshimo's face had been busily undergoing drastic changes in color throughout the length of her tirade. When she had finished his mouth flopped open and shut like a fish a couple of times, without sound. Then he looked at the floor seeming to recover himself, and when he spoke again it was in a shameful whisper.

"I never thought of it quite like that before." He glanced at her self-consciously. "Forgive me, I have forgotten my place, and my manners. It won't happen again."

Thorn strode ahead of him still boiling.

She did not see the scar faced girl watching her leave from the shadows.

A mug of sour ale was placed in front of her. She paid the barmaid three gold pieces for it and began to consume the bitter liquid in generous gulps. She needed it. The images of the naked women and girls staring at her so lifelessly would remain permanently burned into the back of her eyelids.

She tried not to think of Imoen.

She tried not to think of Irenicus.

She tried not to think of the way he had held her hand that night in the room of the twisted chair or the way that his eyes raged at the sight of her or the terrible warmth of his bare chest against her cheek as he carried her half dead to her cell. What did it all mean? Despite his sociopathic behavior and often lack of emotion, she knew he was not a sociopath. Or at least had not always been. There was such a deep, heavy, lingering melancholy about him that she could not place. It showed itself at intervals, an invisible curtain was drawn aside and it animated his being like a leaden shadow. Then the curtain would role back again and the sadness was replaced by a glittering hardness, frigid to look upon.

"Fair Lady, what brings you to this cesspool of sin and corruption?"

It was all Thorn could do to keep from aspirating her ale in surprise. The person who had addressed her so gracefully was (on first examination) a man with a tanned good natured face under a wavy head of coco colored locks. He had soft blue eyes that were totally devoid of threat or lies and thus easy to look into. Thorn even thought him to be rather handsome. At a glance she observed that he was wearing heavy plate armor and thus was probably a fighter or cleric of some kind.

"To have a drink, what are you doing?" The ruffled woman finally managed to answer him.

"Hopefully doing the same if you'll let me sit with you."

"Oh by all means." She acquiesced studying his wholesome features curiously.

"Actually my lady," He began when he had settled into a chair with a brimming mug. "I'm seeking adventures and honor."

"Yes and this place is positively reeking of both." Thorn's tone was sarcastic as she thought bitterly of her previous encounter. Her acquaintance arched his elegant eyebrows in puzzlement, and concern.

"You sound upset. Is there something troubling you my lady?"

"No, well yes, yes. I just had the pleasant experience of touring the whore house back there."

"Horrible places are they not? I would slaughter all those involved in that detestable trade if I could."

"Really?" Thorn asked, something like respect forming in her mind for this honorable gentleman.

"Of course, all that is evil should and will be replaced by all that is good and pure that is the way of things."

"Are you a cleric Sir um...?"

"Anomen, but no Sirs as yet my lady. For though I am a cleric I am also a knight of The Order of the Radiant Heart or hope to be soon, and cannot yet except the title of Sir. That is why I seek adventures, to win honor, to make myself worthy of serving such a valiant organization."

"Yes I can see where the stakes would be high to get into any place whose title included "Radiant Heart."

"I beg your name my lady."

"Thorn."

"And are you a cleric or perhaps someone in your family is?"

She smiled for the first time in a long time. "Me? A cleric? Heavens no. No there have never been any clerics in my family only mages, demons, Gods of Murder, that sort of thing." She took another sip of her ale.

At the far end of the bar the Bhaalspawn's companions observed their discourse with some interest.

"Who is that shiny man with Thorn?" Minsc asked over an armful of brand new weaponry.

"Probably a barmaid." Said Yoshimo.

"Boo thinks you cannot be right, he is not serving her beer."

"Boo's right I didn't notice that."

Jahiera handed some gold coins to an enormously fat man behind the counter.

"Thank you Bartleby. It has been good to see you again, it brings back many memories of happier days."

"And it's been a pleasure seeing you Miss Jahiera if you ever come again drop by and see me."

"I will."

"Excuse me my lady." She was approached by a willowy looking elf who looked her up and down shamelessly. "You have an earthly wisdom about you. I find that very sensual."

"Off with you."

"Do not spurn me my lady! You burn me with your rejection!"

"And that's not all I'll burn you with if you don't make yourself scarce!" She pushed him off in an easterly direction.

"Jahiera, who is that?" Yoshimo queried.

She looked in the direction he indicated with his finger.

"I thought I told her to be careful! Who knows what the ruffian wants!"

Thorn looked up from her companion's comforting eyes to see her friends at her shoulder regarding Anomen suspiciously.

"Jahiera, Minsc, Yoshimo, this is Anomen. He seeks to become a night in The Order of the Radiant Heart. I have told him of our quest and..."

"Child!" Jahiera gasped.

"And he has agreed to assist us in our mission."

"Well, a knight!" Yoshimo's mouth crinkled into a kind of amused grimace. "Now things should get interesting."

"Boo likes him and so does Minsc!" The gentle fighter chimed in happily.

"Are you sure about this man?" Jahiera whispered. "He may be after our heads for the bounty, or gold or..."

"I am not after your heads my lady." Anomen cut her off. "I find them much more appealing just where they are, and I have all the gold I could want at home."

Jahiera glowered at him resentfully.

"Very well, but if it turns out he's rotten, I told you so! Now we were only able to afford one merchant room. We could have gotten two of the peasant ones, but those are little more then rat holes in the ground. Of course this leaves a rather delicate matter of privacy..."

"I have my own room." The knight said with a slight bow. "It's a nobleman's room, the lady's shall have my room, and we gentlemen will retire in the merchant room tonight. With your permission my lady." His eyes rested upon Thorn.

"That sounds lovely, how very generous of you."

"Very!" Yoshimo added with false enthusiasm, annoyed at having to give up the nicer room.

"Let's go to bed then. I'm dead tired." Jahiera announced, and thus it was that they departed for their first night of quiet repose.

Jahiera gently pulled at the snarls in Thorn's black tresses with a horse hair brush. They were sitting curled one behind the other on the bed the faint light of the candles casting feathery shadows across their bodies.

"You know I rather like him." The druid was speaking to her. "He's handsome, a gentleman with excellent manners. Perhaps you should get to know him better my dear."

"I haven't thought about that yet."

"Yes I don't blame you. I try not to think about love that much now. I can do it easily enough when I'm fighting or talking with friends, but when you're alone, that's when it gets you. When there isn't anyone to drown out the yearning in your own head. Like a persistent buzz. The whole damn thing makes me think of Khalid." Her voice cracked like porcelain tapped against stone. It hurt Thorn more then anything else to see her cry. Jahiera never cried unless something had really come apart.

She turned to face her. The druid's hazel eyes were dripping salty water and she pressed her fist against her taunt mouth.

"Jahiera." Thorn said forlornly, wiping a tear from her brown cheek with her thumb.

The druid recovered herself. "You're right, it's time for sleep. I have need of it here come lay with me." She pulled back the covers and patted the mattress encouragingly. "It helps." Then she kissed Thorn on the forehead like a mother would a child. They burrowed beneath the crisp sheets. The bhaalspawn wrapped her arms about the druid's waist, and breathed in the organic scent of her hair like crushed sweet grass. Basking in the warmth of each others body heat in a cold room sleep eventually took them, but Thorn was uneasy. She felt the tingling dread of something horrible on its way. It started at the base of her spine, and then spread all the way to her neck where it clutched her windpipes like an icy hand.

He came to her that night.

Thorn eyes snapped open to find in terror that Jahiera was no longer in the bed. She felt him coming like a knife steadily weaving toward her belly. He stepped through the delicate membrane of her dream causing her to groan with the spasms of anguish that followed, shooting up her legs like white, hot, ropes. She pulled the covers up around her throat as if for protection. The bed creaked as another body slipped under the blanket. Two arms encircled her waist causing her to shiver convulsively. She clenched her eyes shut, she tried to twist her stomach into a rock. Hot breath seared the back of her neck.

"Go away." She whispered.

"I can't now." It was His voice.

It sent waves of panic spinning over her brain. She rolled away from the arms to see him laying there his distorted face even more hideous then in the undulating light of the candles then she remembered it. The necromancer's skin was like blue ice across his chest and his fair eye flashed upon her crouching at the edge of the bed arms wrapped about her knees, face drained of blood.

"I'm sorry if I've given you a shock."

"How did you get here?"

"This is a dream. They are not easy things to penetrate. They pop rather like soap bubbles unless you're given an opening. Unless the dreamer calls upon you."

"I never did."

"You thought of me. That was the opening."

"What do you want from me?"

He sat up an expression that was hard to define written across his ashen visage.

"To teach you."

Thorn looked at him bemused.

Suddenly he leaned towards her, and she thrust a hand against his chest.

"Don't!" The glacial temperature of his scarred flesh chilled her like death.

He smiled amusedly at her reaction, and reclined against the headboard.

"Are you dead?"

"This is your dream. I'm whatever you want me to be."

"What do you wish to teach me?"

"Magic, you have immense talent for the art. I can smell it on you, but it can only be cultivated by a highly skilled teacher, and there is not one in existence more skilled then I."

"Where did you learn it?"

He paused; the rush of melancholy swamped his mismatching eyes momentarily and then was lost.

"In my former home, it has both served me and killed me, but really all things magical are a matter of will. The caster's to be precise, so if it killed me it is really I who killed myself."

Before Thorn had time to swerve aside he lent forward and catching her in both his arms pulled her to him.

"Listen." His words burned like fire against her ear. "You do not know the true power you possess, but I do, and it is glorious. I will come again, and when I do we will begin your training."

She felt his lips brush against her throat, and all was swallowed in a vortex of pain.

Thorn sat up gasping. Jahiera was snoring gently beside her. She burrowed closer to her sleeping friend in an attempt to stop the shaking as she looked up at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. And so began her first real episode of insomnia. Lying with open eyes stinging in the dark all night, she didn't want to sleep, she didn't want to sleep.

Irenicus awoke from his trance to the pitch and roll of the ship. Sweat was coursing profusely down his bare torso. He pounded the walls with his fists and contorted his countenance into an expression of deepest agony.

"Oh God!" He wailed, and tore his nails down the side of his face.

_Sorry this took so long, but I have a very demanding life, so don't be surprised if it takes a couple of weeks for me to update. I realize that this chapter was pretty much all talk, but you action junkies out there have nothing to worry about. Adventures will being falling thick and fast next time. Thanks again to everyone for all the wonderful reviews, and keep them coming! _

**sammie teufel- **_Thanks! Um... If by class you mean like what her profession is she's a mage/sorcerer. _

**Suicide Minion- **_Thank you. Jahiera's one of my favorite NPCs too. She just seemed to be the most complex, have the most interesting back story, and I admired her strength. Yah no Anomen bashing, it's not my style. _

**angelus 2040- **_Many thanks! I am positive that you are right and that I spelt his name wrong. I could only remember that it had an r and a v in it so I just kind of made it up._

**celestine 1- **_Hey great to hear from you again my faithful reviewer! pats self on back Thank you very much, I try my best. I think I heard the term "of Elvin make" in The Lord of the Rings book, so I think it's valid, but I'm not sure._

**Offshoreecho- **_To make you cry has now become my goal. I'm sorry, but I'm terrible with punctuation, and I don't have anyone to correct it for me, but I try to get it right, (which rarely happens) You have really got to tell me more about this spider that bit you. Ewwwww! It gives me the willies. Anyway lots of love to you and I'll be sending lots more reviews on your story as well._

**Asrayu- **_Thank you very much for the wonderful literary criticism! It's always the best kind to get. Could you give me an example of a line that does not fit? It would be most helpful. A reference to Don MacLean? Gods no, it never even crossed my mind where did you see that? And don't you worry, they'll be plenty of Irenicus in here, it's as much his story as Thorn's. Do review again, it would be a pleasure! P.S. The thing about the better reader correcting my story is that I would never show it to my parents, and none of my friends save one former friend now enemy of mine have played Baldur's Gate so they would be bored. In addition most of my friends are worse then me believe it or not. _


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